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SELECTED POEMS OF 

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 

EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION 
AND NOTES 

BY 

GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE, M.A. 

Formerly Professor of English in Mercer University 




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HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Boston : 4 Park Street ; New York : 85 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue 

dje lUitJet^iDe pre??, Cambribge 



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Two Copies Receiveo . 

AUG 14 190^ 

Ce1)yrirM Entry 

CLASS ^^ XXCm No. 

COPY Q. 



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COPYRIGHT 1907 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



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PREFACE 

No one can attempt to deal with Shelley in editorial 
fashion without being conscious at almost every step 
of the great value of Professor Dowden's biography 
of the poet, and of much of the other material men- 
tioned in the Bibliography. I have tried, however, in 
preparing the Introduction and Notes, to maintain 
that independence of judgment which should charac- 
terize all Shelleyans, and to produce a text suitable 
indeed for student use, and conforming to classroom 
requirements, yet based on other than formally peda- 
gogic principles. Literature, it seems, is not getting 
itself taught in our higher schools as vitally as we 
would like, despite immense critical apparatus. Is 
it because we are too judicial? Is it because a poem, 
like a person, invites affection before it yields its con- 
fidence ? 

G. H. C. 

Macoi^, Georgia, December, 1906. 



CONTENTS 

Iktroduction ix 

The Lif e of SheUey ix 

Shelley as Poet liii 

Bibliography , Ixix 

Stanzas — April, 1814 1 

To Coleridge 2 

To Wordsworth 3 

A Summer Evening Churchyard 4 

Lines ("The cold earth slept below") .... 5 

The Sunset 6 

"^Hymn to Intellectual Beauty 8 

Mont Blanc 11 

To CONSTANTIA, SiNGINQ 16 

Sonnet — OzYMANDiAs 17 

Lines (*'That time is dead for ever, child") . . 18 

Lines to a Critic 18 

Passage of the Apennines 19 

On a Faded Violet 19 

Lines Written among the Euganean Hills . . . 20 
Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples . . .31 

Lines to an Indian Air 33 

Love's Philosophy 34 

Song — To the Men of England 34 

England in 1819 36 

^Ode to the West Wind 36 

Prometheus Unbound 40 

The World's Wanderers 147 

The Waning Moon . .147 

To the Moon 147 

Good-Night 148 



Viu CONTENTS 

Song ("Rarely, rarely, comest thou") . . . . 148 

to c'l fear thy kisses, gentle maiden ") . . .150 

Song of Proserpine 150 

Autumn: A Dirge . 151 

The Question 152 

Hymn of Apollo 153 

Hymn of Pan 154 

Arethusa 156 

The Cloud 158 

^?o A Skylark 16i 

Ode to Liberty 165 

The Sensitive Plant 175 

Dirge for the Year 187 

To Night 188 

Sonnet to Byron . i89 

Lines ("Far, far away, ye") 190 

To Emilia Viviani 190 

To ("Music, when soft voices die") . . . .191 

To ("One word is too often profaned") ... 191 

To (" When passion's TRANCE IS overpast ") . . . 192 

Bridal Song 193 

Mutability 193 

Sonnet — Political Greatness 194 

To-MoRROW 195 

A Lament (" World! Life ! Time ! ") . . . 195 

A Lament ("Swifter far than summer's flight") . . 195 

^^Adonais 197 

A Dirge ("Rough wind, that moanest loud") . . . 218 

Epitaph .218 

Lines ("When THE LAMP IS shattered") .... 218 

Song — From " Charles THE First " 219 

To Jane — The Invitation ....... 220 

To Jaj^e — The Recollection 222 

With a Guitar, To Jane 225 

Notes 229 




FIELD PLACE 



INTRODUCTION 

THE LIFE OF SHELLEY 

Every life is a symbol as well as a history, — a symbol, 
perhaps it were truer to say, because it is a history. The life 
of Shelley as a man, exceptional as it appears, is at one with 
the genius of Shelley as a poet, — it was impulsive ; gener- 
ously ardent ; filled with the scorn of scorn, the love of love ; 
eager and anxious to establish universal justice, freedom, 
and happiness ; but pursuing too characteristically the de- 
humanized method of importing goodness into men rather 
than that of winning men into goodness. The course of his 
life moved from the tense yet dark mood of Paracelsus, 
exultant in denial and challenge, to the high affirmations of 
Aprile, — 

" . . . the over-radiant star too mad 
To drink the life-springs." 

Had he lived, it is hardly possible that he would have failed 
to become at last 

" . . . . . a third 
And better-tempered spirit, warned by both." 

On the fourth day of August, 1792, their first child was 
born to Timothy and Elizabeth Shelley, at Field Place, near 
Horsham, Sussex. He was called Percy, because that was 
a favourite name in the Shelley family, ancient in Sussex ; 
and Bysshe, because that was the name of his paternal 
grandfather, a handsome, wealthy, and positive old gentle- 
man, eventually made a baronet, who had been twice 
married, first to Miss Mary Catherine Michell, a Sussex 
heiress, who died after eight years of union, at the age of 
twenty-six ; and again to Miss Elizabeth Jane Sidney, 



X INTRODUCTION 

another heiress, this time of Kent, and a descendant of Sir 
Philip. It is interesting to note that, according to Medwin, 
the impetuous Sir Bysshe eloped in each instance, and also 
that he was usually on bad terms with his son Timothy, one 
of three children -r- the others being girls — born in the first 
family. 

Timothy Shelley was a good-hearted rural Englishman of 
social importance and limited intelligence. He believed in 
the things that it was proper and dignified to believe in, 
and he expected equal conformity from his fellows, perhaps 
rather more of it from his inferiors. He had attended 
University College, Oxford, and had got himself duly 
elected Member of Parliament. He did his duty by the 
Church, the State, and the family, and was hardly less willing 
than his father to play Sir Oracle. In October, 1791, he 
married Miss Elizabeth Pilfold, of Effingham, Surrey, a 
somewhat unfeminine yet attractive and gracious woman. 
She became the mother of seven children, — two boys, Percy 
Bysshe and John, separated in age by fourteen years ; and 
five girls, Elizabeth, Mary, two Hellens — one of whom died 
very early — and Margaret. Their adventurous and well- 
favoured brother was adored by the little maidens, who, 
during his stay at home, ^^ followed my leader" in all sorts 
of thrilling excursions about house and garden. Quiet old 
Field Place spelled to these half-quaking explorers a land 
of mystery and portent, of golden enchantment, — a back- 
ground for the most moving legends, told fearsomely by 
Bysshe to Jhis awed companions. He was fond, too, like 
other imaginative children, of inventing remarkable but 
shadowy situations in which he had played a leading part, 
or again, he would detach himself from all, and go brooding 
about alone in the moonlight, save for a watchful servant 
following discreetly at a distance. 

After six secluded years of infancy and boyhood had 
passed, Bysshe became a pupil of the Rev. Mr. Edwards, of 
the village of Warnham, hard by. The four succeeding years 



INTRODUCTION xi 

he spent chiefly in studying Latin and developing his strength 
by somewhat irregular exercise. At ten he was entered at 
Sion House Academy, Isleworth, near Brentford. Here he 
found himself one of some sixty pupils, ruled by a Dr. 
Greenlaw, "a vigorous old Scotch divine," writes Professor 
Dowden, " choleric and hard-headed, but not unkindly. . . . 
With spectacles pushed high above his dark and bushy eye- 
brows, the dominie would stimulate the laggard construers. 
Frequent dips into his mull of Scotch snuff helped him to 
sustain the wear and tear of the class-room." Shelley's 
slight, lithe, graceful figure was at once felt by the hoi 
polloi to present an irritatingly marked deviation from the 
norm, and they soon found that this was true also of his man- 
ner. His advent, accordingly, provoked roughness, persecu- 
tion even, the more readily that the fagging system covered a 
multitude of petty tyrannies. Thomas Medwin, a cousin and 
biographer of Shelley, who was also a pupil at Sion House, 
describes him as " a strange and unsocial being." Preoccu- 
pied as he was with his visions and imaginings, he gave only 
a constrained attention to either his schoolmates or his tasks, 
yet he advanced steadily in learning, and was transferred at 
the age of twelve to Eton. Meantime his taste for the eerie 
as steadily asserted itself : he read avidly the sixpenny 
dreadfuls, and was particularly charmed with the gothic 
romances of Mrs. Anne Radcliffe. He was also significantly 
interested in physical and chemical experiments. 

Shelley must have passed from Sion House with scant 
regret, for he seems there to have been an all too willing 
Ishmael, save for a single friend ; yet at Eton his situation 
was hardly improved. Though he found more friends of 
a sort, he found also more persecutors among both masters 
and pupils, and he was so often thrashed that he became 
dully apathetic to the mere bodily pain. Dr. Goodall, the 
head-master, a man of solid worth, was seconded in the 
Lower School by Dr. Keate, powerful with book and birch 
alike. Shelley entered the Fourth Form under Keate's juris- 



xu INTRODUCTION 

diction, and resided first with a Mr. Hexton as his tutor and 
mentor, and thereafter with George Beth ell, renowned in 
the history of Eton for his dulness and his good-nature. 
But neither Keate's severity nor Bethell's absurdity moved 
Shelley much. He still lived aloof, for the most part, from 
the ordinary associations and requirements of school citizen- 
ship. So indifferent was he to the excitements of his five 
hundred fellows, and so fiercely resentful, not of physical 
hurt, but of injustice and the spirit of cruelty, that he came 
to be known as '' Mad Shelley,^' and was baited time after 
time for their amusement by a crew of thoughtless torment- 
ors. When pushed to the limit of his patience, says one, his 
eyes would " flash like a tiger's, his cheeks grow pale as 
death, his limbs quiver." Such boys as he did attract, how- 
ever, — though few but one Halliday appear to have had 
an instinctive understanding of him, — loved him for his 
unswerving honour, his kindness, and his generosity. With 
Halliday, Shelley took many a pleasant ramble in the fields 
and woods about Eton, pouring out his young soul in fits 
and starts of hope and enthusiasm. " He certainly was not 
happy at Eton,'' wrote his friend in later years, "for his 
was a disposition that needed especial personal superintend- 
ence, to watch and cherish and direct all his noble aspirations, 
and the remarkable tenderness of his heart. He had great 
moral courage, and feared nothing but what was base and 
false and low," From the same source we learn that his 
lessons "were child's play to him." He moved through the 
formal curriculum with ease, and chose to add to his school 
work the outside reading of such classical authors as Lu- 
cretius and Pliny, with Franklin, Condorcet, and particu- 
larly Godwin — his future father-in-law — in his Political 
Justice, His fascinated interest in science, too, increased, 
and he ran not a few risks — both physical and magisterial 
— in his ardour for experiment. One likes to think of 
Shelley's spiritual kinship with Shakespeare's Ariel, creature 
of air and fire. Certainly, the young Etonian could have 



INTRODUCTION xui 

found no better image of his own restless adventurings than 
the balloons ^ of fire he so often gave to the darkness, cleav- 
ing the gloom of night and steering their uncertain course 
into the company of moon and stars. Shelley's science was 
a matter of lore and wonder rather than of knowledge and 
precision. This attitude, already characteristic, was en- 
couraged and strengthened by the boy's contact with Dr. 
Lind, a retired physician /living close at hand in Windsor, 
whose memory Shelley always regarded with a lively grati- 
tude, and who is immortalized in The Revolt of Islam as 
the friendly hermit, and in Prince Athanase as Zonoras, — 

" An old, old man, with hair of silver white, 
And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and blend 

With his wise words, and eyes whose arrowy light 
Shone like the reflex of a thousand minds." 

Professor Dowden, in his admirably full and discrimi- 
nating biography, speaks of two " shining moments " in Shel- 
ley's youth, which were to the boy as moments of revolution. 
His experiences at Sion House led him to take careful thought 
concerning individual and popular unhappiness, its causes 
and conditions, and finally to vow in youthful yet serious 
fashion that he would never oppress another nor himself 
submit to tyranny. In the dedication of The Revolt of 
Islam — originally Laon and Cythna — to Mary Shelley 
he writes : — 

" I do remember well the hour which burst 
My spirit's sleep. A fresh May-dawn it was, 
. When I walked forth upon the glittering* grass, 
And wept, I knew not why : until there rose 

From the near schoolroom voices that, alas ! 
Were but one echo from a world of woes — 
The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. 

" And then I clasped my hands and looked around ; 
But none was near to mock 'my streaming eyes 

1 Shelley was fond, too, of sailing miniature paper boats. Cf . Rosa- 
lind and Helen, 11. 181-187. 



XIV INTRODUCTION 

Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground. 
So, without shame, I spake : ' I will be wise, 
And just and free, and mild, if in me lies 

Such power, for I grow weary to behold 
The selfish and the strong still tyrannize 

Without reproach or check.' I then controlled 
My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold." 

If in the first moment Shelley felt his conscience quickened 
and dedicated to the cause of liberty, so in the second his 
imagination sought deliverance from the bondage of the 
merely horrible and sinister, and began instead to seek pure 
beauty and pursue it. This moment, too, he has fixed for 
us in his Hymn to Intellectual Beauty : — 

" While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped 

Through many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin, ; 

And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing 
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. 
I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed. 
I was not heard, I saw them not ; 
When, musing deeply on the lot 
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing 
All vital things that wake to bring 
News of birds and blossoming, 
Sudden thy shadow fell on me : — 
I shrieked and clasped my hands in ecstasy ! 

" I vowed that I would dedicate my powers 

To thee and thine ; have I not kept the vow ? 



They know that never joy illumed my brow 
Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free 
This world from its dark slavery, 

That thou, O awful Loveliness, 

Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express." 

These passages were conceived by a saner mind and 
written with a steadier hand than were the rather prolific 
effusions of Shelley's earlier youth, productions which began 
first at Eton to court pen and paper. Several fragment- 
ary poems belong to this time, as also the extravagant 
romance, Zastrozzi, written probably in collaboration with 



INTEODUCTION XV 

Harriet Grove, Shelley's cousin and sweetheart. Indeed, 
collaboration was something of a habit with the boy, not, 
it would seem, through any lack of confidence in his own 
creative powers, — for young Shelley was much less dis- 
turbed than his riper self by doubts concerning his own 
works, — but rather as the co-operative impulse of a spirit 
willing to share its enthusiasms with kindred spirits. He 
formed literary partnerships with his sisters Elizabeth 
and Hellen, with Medwin, and possibly also with Edward 
Graham, a friend of 1810-11. Graham may have been asso- 
ciated with the "Victor and Cazire " project, the appearance 
of a volume of poems that were wild and whirling indeed, 
but of which all the copies — save one, since reprinted — 
were apparently destroyed or suppressed. More probably, 
however, Elizabeth was the " Cazire " of the partnership. 
Medwin helped to shape the beginnings of a romantic 
Nightmare, and a poem about that persevering pilgrim, the 
Wandering Jew. Apart from their biographical interest 
hardly one of these works is worth naming. 

Complacent Mr. Timothy Shelley had no manner of doubt 
that his son — peculiar in some respects though he seemed 
— would do about as well at Oxford as he himself had 
done, and the two travelled up thither amicably to arrange 
for Bysshe's entrance upon residence in University College 
at the beginning of the Michaelmas term of 1810. Mr. 
Timothy was graciously paternal, and even went so far as 
to introduce his son to a local printer named Slatter, with 
the suggestion that this man should indulge the youth " in 
his printing freaks." Rooms were secured, money matters 
adjusted, advice freely given, and the Polouius of Field 
Place departed in high good-humour with himself and all 
the world. He would have been interested, perhaps, to know 
what was passing in Bysshe's mind as he looked about him 
at Oxford, deciding what he liked and what he did not like. 
He liked the seclusion, the libraries, the natural beauty of 
the place ; he did not like its sleepiness, its conservatism, 



XVI INTRODUCTION 

its orderly academic routine. One is strikingly reminded of 
Bacon's indictment of the Cambridge of his day : " In the 
universities, all things are found opposite to the advance- 
ment of the sciences ; for the readings and exercises are 
here so managed that it cannot easily come into any one's 
mind to think of things out of the common road. . . . For 
the studies of men in such places are confined, and pinned 
down to the writings of certain authors; from which, if 
any man happens to differ, he is presently represented as 
a disturber and innovator." Shelley's mind — alert, original, 
though always in certain respects untrained — thought of 
many things out of the common road. His prime Oxford 
" innovation," it is true, was not carefully conceived or tact- 
fully presented. It was a piece of folly for which he paid 
dear, but it was not dishonourable, nor was it even " dan- 
gerous " in any vital sense. Soon after his arrival he made 
the acquaintance casually of a fellow-freshman, Thomas 
Jefferson Hogg, a well-born and worldly-wise young man of 
considerable cultivation, easy opinions, and a half-cynical, 
half-amused, interest in the people he met and in the prob- 
lems he heard them discuss and on occasion discussed with 
them. Ten years later Shelley thus described him, in his 
Letter to Maria Gisborne : — 

" I cannot express 
His virtues, though I know that they are great, 
Because he locks, then barricades, the gate 
Within which they inhabit ; — of his wit 
And wisdom, you '11 cry out when you are bit. 
He is a pearl within an oyster shell, 
One of the richest of the deep." 

Hogg was strongly attracted by Shelley's looks, sincerity, and 
enthusiasms. The two met night after night in each other's 
rooms, and debated questions of literature, science, and his- 
tory, on Shelley's side with fervour, on Hogg's with growing 
interest in this rara avis, an interest almost wonder. Hogg 
deeply respected Shelley's power of imagination and purity of 



INTRODUCTION XVll 

character, though he allowed himself to be entertained by 
his new friend's extravagances of manner and statement. 
He has left us in his Life of Shelley a detailed and pic- 
turesque account of the poet as he knew him during their 
six months' comradeship at college. He describes Shelley's 
figure as ^' slight and fragile, and yet his bones and joints 
were large and strong. He was tall, but he stooped so much 
that he seemed of a low stature. His clothes were expensive, 
and made according to the most approved mode of the day ; 
but they were tumbled, rumpled, unbrushed. His gestures 
were abrupt, and sometimes violent, occasionally even awk- 
ward, yet more frequently gentle and graceful. . . . His 
features, his whole face and particularly his head, were, in 
fact, unusually small ; yet the last appeared of a remarkable 
bulk, for his hair was long and bushy, and in fits of absence 
and in the agonies (if I may use the word) of anxious thought, 
he often rubbed it fiercely with his hands, or passed his fin- 
gers quickly through his locks unconsciously, so that it was 
singularly wild and rough.^ . . . His features were not sym- 
metrical (the mouth, perhaps, excepted), yet was the effect 
of the whole extremely powerful. They breathed an anima- 
tion, a fire, an enthusiasm, a vivid and preternatural intelli- 
gence, that I never met with in any other countenance. Nor 
was the moral expression less beautiful than the intellectual ; 
for there was a softness, a delicacy, a gentleness, and espe- 
cially (though this will surprise many) that air of profound 
religious veneration that characterizes the best works, and 
chiefly the frescoes (and into these they infused their whole 
souls) of the great masters of Florence and of Rome." Only 
his voice did Hogg find displeasing, which seemed to him at 
first " intolerably shrill, harsh and discordant." Other friends 
and contemporaries speak also of this defect, but generally 
agree that it was observable only in moments of high excite- 
ment, and that Shelley's normal tones were winsome enough. 
The two friends not only read and talked together, but 
1 Cf . " his scattered hair." — Alastar, I. 248. 



xvui INTRODUCTION 

Hogg would incredulously watch Shelley performing his 
always miraculous chemical experiments, or they would 
tramp about the countryside — Shelley seemed rather to float 
— and meet with adventures more or less exciting. Shelley 
eared little for the studies imposed upon him, and pursued 
his intellectual investigations with a free mind and in an en- 
tirely free manner within the privacy of his chambers, read- 
ing Plutarch, Plato, Hume, Locke, the Greek tragedies, 
Shakespeare, and Landor. He continued also to write, pub- 
lishing at his own expense another Etonian romance, — and 
failure, — St, Irvyne^ or The Rosicrucian y some political 
verse ; and a volume of miscellaneous poetry containing bur- 
lesques that pleased undergraduate taste, printed together 
with some more serious work produced spasmodically. That 
Shelley could have been willing at this date to publish, though 
anonymously, his crude and overstrained tale, and to push 
its fortunes with enthusiasm, attests perhaps better than any 
other single fact the condition of his critical judgment dur- 
ing the Oxford days. The poet in him must surely have been 
protestant the while I " I am aware," he wrote to Stockdale 
the publisher, after reaction began to be felt, " of the impru- 
dence of publishing a book so ill -digested as SU Irvyne.'" 
Stockdale, for his part, from whatever motive, stirred up 
trouble for Shelley at home by calling his father's attention 
to the unsoundness of his views and attributing this to his 
continued association with Hogg. Parental — chiefly pater- 
nal — intervention followed, only to confirm Shelley in what 
candour must designate as the heroic of the misunderstood. 
He vowed excitedly to defend his principles to the last, and 
to remain loyal to his friend at all hazards. His elders did 
not treat him with the wisdom born of humour and sympa- 
thy ; they did not know the way to his heart, and had they 
known it they would have found that heart at the moment 
out of tune and harsh. Harriet Grove's affection was not 
proof against her alarm at Shelley's reputed heresies and 
his own exaggerated declarations of belief and unbelief. 



INTRODUCTION xix 

She both loved and dreaded the strange youth ; prudence 
prevailed, and in 1811 she married " a clod of earth," as 
Shelley described him, a Mr. Helyar. The boy felt the blow- 
keenly, philosophized at length concerning it, and in a letter 
to Hogg written from Field Place during the Christmas 
vacation anathematized Intolerance, the cause of all his 
woes. He now planned that Hogg should marry Elizabeth, 
his eldest sister, who was affectionately consoling him at 
home. At least his friend should be happy. 

Most, perhaps all, of this coil had been avoided if the 
prime actor therein had been less intense in behaviour, and 
his friends more willing to rely on his personal goodness 
and root docility. It is far from the mark to allow that 
Shelley was at any time a deliberate atheist. No man, it is 
safe to say, has felt more directly and continually than did 
he the existence of a beneficent Spirit. As an imdergradu- 
ate, it is true, he was affected in his thought by the dogmas 
of materialism, but at no time ceased to postulate the being 
of an ultimate Intelligence and Love. It would be difficult 
id find in pure literature a more eager hunger and thirst for 

V ^oliness and the Source of holiness than appears in Shel- 

V ley's Adonais, The Cenci, Hellas, The Revolt of Islam^ 
and Prometheus Unbound, not to speak of his just and 
reverent Essay on Christianity, With what he conceived 
to be the inherent taint of ecclesiasticism, indeed, he was 
constantly at war, like Chaucer, Milton, Ruskin, Carlyle, 
and Browning, in their diverse ways ; though, unlike them, 
he attacked not merely the taint, but also, and with fierce 
energy, the entire churchly system. In this regard he be- 
trayed unusual zest, as witness the implications of char- 
acter in cardinal and pope in The Cenci, and the vivid 
pictures of the Prometheus, when compared with Chau- 
cer's good-humoured revelations in The Canterbury Tales, 
and Browning's half-friendly condemnations of Blougrani 
and his kind. Shelley unfortunately tended to identify always 
priesthood with tradition, the church with uncompromising 



XX INTRODUCTION 

and persecuting conservatism. There is in his work no 
'' povre Persoun of a toun," no Innocent XII. He did not 
habitually see both sides, though in one of his more pensive 
moods he actually expressed a desire to become himself a 
minister. ^' Of the moral doctrines of Christianity I am a 
more decided disciple than many of its more ostentatious 
professors. And consider for a moment how much good a 
good clergyman may do." -^ But for a moment only was this 
considered. Shelley wished characteristically to dispense for 
good and all with the ''' law " idea, and to bring the sorely 
suffering world out into the light of knowledge, virtue, love, 
and freedom. He knew what prayer meant ; he was deeply 
moved by awe and wonder in the contemplation of the eternal 
mysteries. In brief, he was not the enemy of religion that 
he thought he was ; he everywhere proclaimed the efficacy of 
the spirit of Love in healing and redeeming humanity. In 
later years Dante and Petrarch, in some respects, modified 
his aversion to historical Christianity, for through their works 
he came to feel keenly its spiritual beauty and power. His 
own religious instinct and attitude as a youth are suggested 
for us in two stanzas of Wordsworth's Ode to Duty : — 

*' There are who ask not if thine eye 
Be on them ; who, in love and truth 
Where no misgiving is, rely 
Upon the genial sense of youth : 
Glad hearts ! without reproach or hlot, 
Who do thy work, and know it not : 
Oh ! if through confidence misplaced 
They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power ! around them cast. 

" Serene will be our days and bright 
And happy will our nature be 
When love is an unerring light, 
And joy its own security. 
And they a blissful course may hold 
Ev'n now, who, not unwisely bold, 

1 From a conversation with Thomas Love Peacock, reported by 
him. 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

Live in the spirit of this creed ; 
Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need." 



The freshman of University College, however, with a 
passion for negations and for reform, was in no mood to 
consider his ways and be wise. He was but too " unwisely 
bold." Almost immediately after his return to Oxford, he 
arranged, with Hogg's connivance, if not collaboration, for 
the anonymous publication of a little pamphlet entitled The 
Necessity of Atheism. His motive in doing so was a mixed 
one, — partly sincere ; partly, no doubt, dramatic. The argu- 
ment, what there is of it, follows the beaten materialistic 
track, assuming throughout that sense-knowledge is all of 
knowledge, but the author seems to lament the " deficiency 
of proof " and to court sympathy and help. Not a few 
sedate dignitaries, to whom Shelley addressed copies of 
the pamphlet, with a specific request from ^'Jeremiah 
Stukeley " for counsel concerning it, fell into the trap and 
furnished their correspondent with much-desired contro- 
versial openings. Shelley had sent a copy to the Vice- 
Chancellor and to each of the Masters, and by his own 
Master he was interrogated and condemned. Upon " con- 
tumaciously refusing " either to acknowledge or to disavow 
the authorship of the paper, he was summarily expelled. 
From the stern conclave of Master and Fellows he rushed 
nervously to Hogg with the fateful news ; Hogg instantly 
entered the breach, and drew upon himself a like examina- 
tion, with a like result. If the judges hoped that submission 
might finally be made, they were disappointed, and the 
sentence had to stand. The anger of the authorities rapidly 
cooled, but that of Shelley and Hogg flamed and mounted. 
The next day, March 26, 1811, they left Oxford together 
for London. She who might have become more and more 
truly Shelley's Alma Mater had behaved in a moment of 
natural impatience as his Dura Noverca, 

After visiting friends and skirmishing about London in 



xxii IN TE OB UCTION 

search of comfortable lodgings, which by some strange irony 
they found at length in Oxford Road, on Poland Street, — 
the ^'Poland,'' at least, reminded Shelley of " Thaddeus of 
Warsaw and of freedom," — the two young men settled down 
to their habitual comradeship, until interrupted by the 
appearance of Shelley's father, freshly fortified by Paley's 
Natural Theology. He had already written to Bysshe, re- 
quiring implicit future obedience and a rupture with Hogg 
as the price of his continued goodwill. He had also adjured 
Mr. Hogg, Sr., to assist in separating the two. Bysshe smiled 
mournfully at his father's blustering theological expostula- 
tions, but flared up at the conditions named as ensuring a 
welcome home. These he deliberately rejected, feeling that 
to forego liberty of action was to forego all, and that his 
truth of character, as well as his personal affection for Hogg, 
demanded the persistence of the friendship. Hogg, however, 
soon withdrew or was withdrawn to York to read law, and 
Shelley, who planned to follow him later, and who was at 
this time half willing to study medicine, found himself for 
the first moment in his life concerned about the means to 
live. His father had cut off all aid, and Bysshe was con- 
strained to accept secret gifts from his devoted sisters, and 
the more substantial assistance of his uncle, Captain Pilf old, 
who had a strong liking for the youth. The girls sent their 
contributions through sixteen-year-old Harriet Westbrook, 
a close friend in their school life at Mrs. Fenning's, Clap- 
ham. Harriet, being a resident of London, and possessing, 
therefore, the requisite freedom, bore many messages — 
both real and personal — between sisters and brother. Her 
father, John Westbrook, was a former tavern-keeper of 
some property, and her sister Eliza, a ''Dark Lady," her 
senior by many years, exercised an almost maternal control 
of her. Harriet was a winsome lass, exquisitely neat and 
pretty, and of a cheerfully sentimental disposition. She 
shared the indignation of the Shelley girls at the ill-treat- 
ment accorded their brother, and she found that brother a 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

particularly attractive and interesting young man. Though 
at first much distressed at the perversity of his views, she 
rapidly came under the charm of his earnest manner and 
luminous deep-blue eyes, so rapidly that before many weeks 
had passed her heart began to whisper a secret. Shelley, 
for his part, knew nothing, or at least thought nothing, of 
such a possibility, but took a hearty pleasure in the comings 
of Harriet and in their conversations. He visited her at 
home and at school, and wrote frequently concerning the 
matters they discussed. Harriet's health thereafter began to 
fail, and Shelley, attributing this to some minor school '' per- 
secutions " and to the major offence of her father in insist- 
ing on her continued stay at school, again broke a lance 
with Intolerance. Shortly afterward, Harriet's preceptress 
discovered one of Shelley's letters in her possession, warned 
both her and his families, and even, it is said, suspended 
Harriet. 

Meanwhile, through the intervention of Captain Pilfold 
and the Duke of Norfolk, Mr. Timothy Shelley's political 
chief, that gentleman became, in a measure, reconciled to his 
son, endowed him unconditionally with £200 a year, and con- 
sented to receive him at Field Place. Once again at home, 
Shelley found constraint even in his mother and Elizabeth, 
dearly as they loved him. Elizabeth scorned his desire that 
she should accept Hogg. To the latter Shelley wrote : '' I 
am a perfect hermit, not a being to speak with ! I some- 
times exchange a word with my mother on the subject of the 
weather, upon which she is irresistibly eloquent ; otherwise 
all is deep silence! I wander about this place, walking all 
over the grounds, with no particular object in view." He 
wrote not only to Hogg, but also to theWestbrook sisters 
and to a Miss Elizabeth Hitchener, a keen and nervously 
intellectual schoolmistress whom he had met at Captain 
Pilfold's house in Cuckfield. 

The home of his cousin, Thomas Grove, near Rhayader, 
Wales, shortly succeeded York as Shelley's objective point. 



XXIV INTRODUCTION 

In the midst of this beautiful country he dwelt a while, un- 
happy and distraught, writing copious letters and marking 
time in a dubious mood. Though the Westbrook ladies were 
also in Wales at this time, he did not see them, but, upon 
their return to London, was shocked to receive from Harriet 
several letters expressing mingled misery and entreaty, — 
misery at the thought of returning to a school where what 
she felt to be unbearable persecution awaited her, and en- 
treaty for sympathy and help. Shelley responded warmly, 
counselling resistance, and even addressed a letter of advice 
and remonstrance to Mr. Westbrook, a letter which he de- 
clined to heed. Harriet wrote once again, appealing to 
Shelley to save her from fear and tyranny, and the high- 
hearted youth — he was now only nineteen — posted at once 
to London, saw Harriet, was amazed at her altered appear- 
ance, and enlightened only when she falteringly told her love. 
Shelley doubtless felt as Jules felt in Browning's Pippa 
Passes : — 

" If whoever loves 
Must be, in some sort, god or worshipper, 
The blessing" or the blest one, queen or page, 
Why should we always choose the page's part ? 
Here is a woman with utter need of me, — 
I find myself queen here, it seems! " 

In a letter to Hogg he speaks of his course as resembling 
rather "exerted action" than "inspired passion." Late in 
August Bysshe and Harriet fled — a long, slow flight it was 
— by coach to Edinburgh, where they were married August 
28, 1811. 

Both husband and wife — despite financial troubles, for 
Shelley's father, deeply incensed against his son, again with- 
drew his aid — spent a bright honeymoon of five weeks in 
Edinburgh. Hogg shortly arrived from York, and was 
domiciled with his friends. Edinburgh in itself did not then 
attract Shelley, but the three shared one another's enthusi- 
asms in matters literary, social, and political, even if Harriet 



INTRODUCTION XXV 

somewhat surprised Shelley and Hogg by persistently read- 
ing aloud from sententiously moral books. She was not a 
cultured woman, but only a bright, eager, un discriminating 
schoolgirl, very willing to accept her liege's opinions, and 
yet a trifle positive in presenting hers. Shelley's increasing 
anxiety concerning income was allayed a little by the good- 
ness of Captain Pilfold, who proved himself now, as before, 
a substantially corporeal guardian angel. From Edinburgh 
the travellers moved on to York, Bysshe shortly resolving 
to seek a personal interview with his father. He made a 
hasty trip into Sussex, as the guest of his uncle, only to be 
met with Mr. Shelley's curt refusal of help. A delightful 
conversation with Miss Hitchener, whose fine mental and 
spiritual qualities he characteristically overrated, was his 
only gain. Passing through London, he returned to York 
to find that Eliza Westbrook had come north and had 
assumed charge of his establishment. Though Shelley was 
aware of this plan, and had forwarded it, he seems to have 
been somewhat disconcerted. A strict domestic programme 
was inaugurated, and was meekly accepted by Harriet, 
who was as clay in Eliza's hands ; and by Shelley, who 
could only look on and wonder ; and by Hogg, who was not 
considered at all. Harriet, indeed, was feeling the need of 
protection from Hogg's unworthy interest, an interest which 
shortly cost him the comradeship, though not the continued 
friendship, of a grieved and troubled Shelley. From York 
the little company, still numbering three, but with Eliza 
in the place of Hogg, proceeded to Keswick and settled in 
Chesnut Cottage, near Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite. 
Here they stayed for several months, Shelley occupying 
himself with the beautiful nature aspects and with divers 
literary enterprises, including a collection of his shorter 
poems, another of essays, and a political novel, Hubert 
Cauvin, of which nothing is now known. With the people 
of Keswick Shelley had little to do, though he met and 
admired friendly William Calvert, and through him became 



XX vi INTRODUCTION 

acquainted with Robert Southey. The older poet — differ- 
ent in temper and theory as the two were — showed the 
younger much practical kindness, but though Shelley met 
his early advances with some eagerness, he soon afterward 
wrote to Miss Hitchener : ''I do not think so highly of 
Southey as I did. ... I do not mean that he is or can be 
the great character which once I linked him to ; his mind 
is terribly narrow compared to it. . . . It rends my heart 
when I think what he might have been ! " 

The Duke of Norfolk was again to act as mediator be- 
tween the Shelleys — father and son — in response to a 
manly letter from Bysshe requesting this service. The mat- 
ter was not at once adjusted, but negotiations were opened, 
and before long the young couple and Miss Westbrook were 
invited to Greystoke, the Duke's neighbouring seat. Shortly 
afterward it was intimated to Shelley that an income of 
£2000 annually might become his if he would consent to 
entail the estate in favour of a possible son or of his brother 
John. Shelley, who strongly opposed the law of primogeni- 
ture and believed that he had no moral right to accept this 
tentative suggestion, declined it with indignation and with- 
out parley. Should he himself inherit the estate — which he 
thought unlikely, as he anticipated an early death — he pur- 
posed to share it with .his friends. Before this discussion 
arose, however, Shelley, by the advice of the Duke, had sent 
his father a letter so just and kind that a favourable response 
was induced, and by January, 1812, an annuity of £200 was 
again settled upon him. This, with a similar sum granted 
by Mr. Westbrook for Harriet's subsistence, saved the young 
people from what had become a really acute though tempor- 
ary poverty. 

It will be recalled that Shelley, while at Eton, was much 
interested in Godwin's revolutionary book, Political Jus- 
tice, His interest had so grown that when he now heard 
casually of Godwin's continued physical existence — he had 
supposed him dead — he eagerly penned a letter overflow- 



IN TROD UCTION XX vii 

ing with respect and admiration, for Shelley the proselyte 
was no less ardent than Shelley the proselytizer. Godwin 
found this communication sufficiently interesting to warrant 
a reply inviting particulars of the writer's history. These 
Shelley immediately supplied, and a steady correspondence 
followed, — Godwin's letters being friendly and hortative, 
Shelley's tractable but animated. In one of these Shelley 
announced his purpose of going into Ireland, there to aid 
in Catholic Emancipation, asking and receiving much good 
advice from Godwin concerning this course. Miss Hitcliener 
was invited to join the party, but declined, and Shelley, with 
his wife and sister-in-law, left Keswick February 2, 1812, 
arriving in Dublin, after tiresome delays, ten days later. 

In parlous Ireland Shelley found work at first to his liking. 
Caring little for Catholic Emancipation in itself, — he owned 
" no cause," he wrote to Godwin, " but virtue, no party but 
the world," — he nevertheless threw himself eagerly into the 
service of the politically oppressed. He issued an Address 
to the Irish People that created some stir, and, until dis- 
suaded by Godwin, sought to form a peaceably revolutionary 
" Association of Philanthropists." Harriet and he must have 
greatly enjoyed their methods of distributing the pamphlets 
he wrote, sometimes throwing them from the window to 
'' likely " persons. On the 28th Shelley spoke with some 
acceptance at a public meeting, and thereafter met, though 
with scant satisfaction, several of the leading Irish patriots. 
He encountered praise, blame, and suspicion, but made him- 
self a manful missionary until personal reaction set in, a re- 
action due partly to the failure of his efforts to modify the 
situation in any practical way, and partly to Godwin's rather 
chilling criticisms. At length, on April 4, he left Ireland 
for Holyhead, and, after several wandering days, pitched 
tent at Nantgwillt, North Wales. Here he penned one or 
two literary studies, and met and liked Thomas Love Pea- 
cock, a liberal, cultured, pleasing man and writer, thence- 
forth Shelley's friend. But again stakes were up, and the 



xxvill , INTRODUCTION 

pilgrims away, first to the Groves' home, near by, and then 
to Chepstow, and to Lynmouth, Devon. Amid the entranc- 
ing coast scenery they stayed two months, and here they 
welcomed the advent of Miss Kitchener, whose extraordinary 
charms, however, slowly lapsed into commonplace in Shel- 
ley's as in Harriet's thinking. From " soul of my soul " 
she became, through several transitions, " Brown Demon." 
Much reading and writing went on in Lynmouth, and at 
this time Shelley was busily at work upon his Queen Mah, 
Here, too, he wrote his birthday sonnet and his blank verse 
apostrophe to Harriet, and penned his energetic Letter 
to Lord Ellenhorough concerning the prosecution of one 
Eaton, a poor bookseller, for publishing part of Paine's^^e 
of Reason, The Devon coast saw Shelley often engaged in 
the boyishly serious business of scattering his revolutionary 
writings to the world at large through the media of bottles, 
sea-boxes, and fire-balloons. The arrest of his manservant, 
however, while distributing copies of the Shelleyan Declara- 
tion of Rights^ decided the swift mind. When Godwin 
arrived unexpectedly in Lynmouth, September 18, he found 
his disciple flown. 

During the next year Shelley travelled variously in all 
parts of the United Kingdom. He settled first at Tan-yr- 
allt, near Tremadoc, Carnarvonshire, and turned from the 
reform of humanity to that of nature, earnestly aiding W. 
Alexander Madocks, M. P., in his attempt to reclaim sev- 
eral thousand acres of land from the sea. While visiting 
London in order to raise a subscription for this project, he 
seized the opportunity to visit the home of Godwin, where 
he met, besides the old philosopher, — who looked, Harriet 
thought, like Socrates, — the second Mrs. Godwin also, her 
young son William, and Fanny (Imlay) Godwin, born to 
Mary Wollstonecraft before she became Godwin's first 
wife. Clara Jane Clairmont, daughter of Mrs. Godwin 
and her first husband, and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 
daughter of Godwin and his first wife — a sufficiently com- 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

plicated family, this ! — were absent during most of the time 
of Shelley's stay in London, and, though both were soon to 
become closely concerned with the life of the poet, he has 
left on record no minute of his impressions, if he then saw 
them. While in London Shelley made other friends also, 
and sought out Hogg, permitting such renewal as was pos- 
sible of their old association. Miss Kitchener, her pedestal 
being lost, took her final leave of Shelley hospitality. " We 
were entirely deceived in her character as to republicanism," 
wrote Harriet to an Irish friend, Mrs. Catherine Nugent, 
" and in short everything else which she pretended to be." 
By November 15 Tremadoc was again in sight, and months 
of happy domesticity followed, Shelley reading much, con- 
tinuing Queen Mab, relieving the distresses of the poor 
about him, and consuming his soul in indignation at the 
imprisonment of Leigh Hunt for a libel upon the Prince 
Regent. Late in February, 1813, a burglarious attack was 
perhaps made upon the poet's home, and his life seems to 
have been in some danger. At all events, the incident ^ was 
nervously magnified by Shelley into " atrocious assassina- 
tion," and, convinced that some sinister villain was on his 
track, he left again for Dublin. Thence the young family 
journeyed to the beautiful Killarney Lakes, and by April 
were again in London. 

Queen Mab, a long, uneven, unrhymed poem, lyric and 
heroic, far more representative of the boy Shelley than of 
the man, was completed in the spring, and was printed for 
restricted distribution. In 1821 its author described it as 
*' a poem . . . written by me at the age of eighteen — I dare 
say, in a sufficiently intemperate spirit. ... I doubt not but 
that it is perfectly worthless in point of literary composition ; 

1 In an interesting article in The Century Magazine for October, 1905, 
A Strange Adventure of Shelley^s, Margaret L. Croft presents evidence 
that one Robin Pant Evan, a rough Welsh sheep-fanner, deliberately 
broke into Tan-yr-allt in order to frighten away Shelley, his ire having 
been aroused at the poet's humane practice of killing his neighbours' 
hopelessly diseased sheep. 



XXX IN TR OB UCTION 

and that, in all that concerns moral and political speculation, 
as well as in the subtler discriminations of metaphysical 
and religious doctrine, it is still more crude and immature." 
During the same year he wrote to Horace Smith : '' If you 
happen to have brought a copy of Clarke's edition of Queen 
Mah for me, I should like very well to see it. — I really 
hardly know what this poem is about. I am afraid it is 
rather rough." The lanthe in the poem gave her name to 
Shelley and Harriet's first child, lanthe Elizabeth, born the 
following June. Shelley's September sonnet, To lanthe, 
expresses the growing love he bestowed upon the infant. 
After her coming a removal was made to Bracknell, in Berk- 
shire, at the suggestion of Mrs. Boinville, a cultured and 
high-principled woman, and her daughter, Cornelia Turner, 
whom Shelley had met in London. From Bracknell they went 
into the Lake country, and thence to Edinburgh again, with 
Peacock, but by December were back in London, securing 
a temporary home in Windsor, near Bracknell. Shelley was 
now feeling keenly the need of additional income, and had 
lately paid a clandestine visit home. He wrote once again to 
his father for consideration, urgently, but in vain. Such 
money as was imperatively necessary to him, therefore, he 
raised on post-obit bonds. 

The biographers of Shelley agree that shortly after the 
birth of her first babe a certain insensibility, always latent 
in Harriet's temper, began to show itself in peculiar fashion. 
She lost, almost completely, her interest in books and read- 
ing, in intellectual adventures, and even in the domestic 
responsibilities attaching to her as wife and mother. That 
Shelley felt deeply this diminution of her customary cheer- 
fulness, this new, strange aloofness of his formerly bright- 
natured wife, is amply evident from the testimony of his 
poems and letters. With an aching heart he watched the too 
rapid course of the chill current of indifference. Sometimes 
he would turn to the Boinvilles in perplexity and doubt, 
seeking help for a problem he hardly knew how to voice. 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

In the society of his thoughtful friends he found stimulus 
for an increasingly dejected spirit, and for the time perhaps 
succeeded in forgetting Harriet. On her side, no doubt, 
Harriet also experienced disillusion. She was no longer a 
fanciful schoolgirl, but a young matron who looked upon 
her husband's exceptional views and manners with less par- 
tial eyes than before. Now he was reading rapturously with 
Cornelia Turner in the Italian poets, now debating ardently 
some religious or political question, now impulsively wander- 
ing abroad or losing himself in fantastic abstractions, but she, 
who had given herself to him for all time, was not receiving 
due consideration, and did not feel the necessity of making 
her gift a progressive one. They were husband and wife, 
and the wife had no fear of losing the husband. If Shelley 
hoped to break through this film hardening into a barrier, 
Eliza's constant presence, which had become very irksome 
to him, and Harriet's ^ carelessness toward lanthe, made the 
attempt more and more difficult. Through the advice of her 
sister and father, too, Harriet was beginning to press for a 
better social station in life. Was not Shelley a baronet-to-be 
and heir to a great estate ? It was becoming surely apparent 
that the relation between these two had never been a vital 
one, but only for a time vitalized. Despite a second mar- 
riage ceremony, entered upon March 22 for legal reasons, 
and despite Shelley's passive acceptance of the duty of pa- 
tience, Eliza and Harriet, by April, 1814, had taken their 
departure for a season, and Shelley had written the mourn- 
ful stanzas printed on page 1. The following month he 
addressed a poem to Harriet, concluding with this appeal : — 

" O trust for once no erring guide ! 
Bid the remorseless feeling flee ; 
'T is malice, 'tis revenge, 't is pride, 

'T is anything but thee ; 
O deign a nobler pride to prove, 
And pity if thou canst not love." 

^ Harriet's last letters to Mrs. Nugent, however, contain several 
very affectionate references to lanthe. 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

But Harriet remained away, settling now at Bath, while 
Shelley walked despairingly the streets of London. He 
called not infrequently at the home of his master, Godwin, 
whose financial condition was even worse than his own, and 
whom he was devotedly anxious to relieve. One midsummer 
day he met — probably then for the first time — Godwin's 
daughter Mary,^ seventeen years of age, pale, earnest, and 
beautiful. Their intellectual sympathy was immediate, and 
after but a month of acquaintance each knew but too cer- 
tainly the feeling of the other. As yet no word of disloyalty 
to Harriet was uttered on either side. Shelley did not at 
the moment believe that an honourable release was open to 
him, and Harriet, for her part, was now beginning to regret 
their division. By July, however, Shelley had come into 
possession of what he thought unquestionable evidence of 
his wife's unfaithfulness to him, evidence which he continued 
to believe, though it was later modified in some important 
particulars, until he died. Concerning its actual value it is 
difficult if not impossible to pronounce, but there can be no 
doubt of Shelley's pain and sincerity in relation to it. 
Neither he nor Mary Godwin hesitated to accept what 
seemed to them a justifying condition of their present love 
and, indeed, of their later union. Writing to Southey in 
1820, Shelley declares himself " innocent of ill, either done 
or intended ; the consequences you allude to flowed in no 
respect from me. If you were my friend, I could tell you 
a history that would make you open your eyes ; but I shall 
certainly never make the public my familiar confidant." 

When Shelley, about July 14, suggested to Harriet the 
desirability of an understood separation, she did not openly 
oppose him, thinking it probable that his regard for Mary 

^ Harriet's first reference to Mary, in her correspondence with Mrs. 
Nugent, has pathetic interest : " There is another daughter gi hers, 
who is now in Scotland. She is very much like her mother, whose 
picture hangs up in his (Godwin's) study. She must have been a most 
lovely woman. Her countenance speaks her a woman who would dare 
to think and act for herself." 



, IN TR OB UCTION xxxiii 

Godwin would shortly cease and that he would return to 
her. This attitude of compliance gave Shelley a wrong im- 
pression ; he arranged for her material welfare, and with- 
drew with a feeling that all would be well, and that Harriet 
concurred in the course he had resolved to pursue. That he 
was mistaken in this supposition made Harriet's loss only the 
more grievous, but both Shelley and Mary believed that 
the new union was to prove best not merely for them but 
for Harriet as well, whose ''interests," as he conceived them, 
Shelley constantly consulted. On July 28, 1814, Mary 
Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley, accompanied by Clara 
Jane Clairmont, left London for the Continent, and the next 
day, at Calais, the poet wrote in his journal : " Suddenly the 
broad sun rose over France." 

The tour that followed was a brief one, cut short by lack 
of funds and by difficulties arising in England. While it 
lasted, however, Shelley and Mary had opportunity to realize 
the strength and virtue of their love, in a time of physical 
and mental stress. Spending but a few days in Paris, they 
proceeded on foot (Mary riding a donkey) to Charenton. 
There they replaced their little beast by a sturdy mule, and on 
reaching Troyes bought an open carriage. By these means, 
after many annoyances, they at length arrived at Neuchatel, 
and at Brunnen on Lake Lucerne. En route Shelley had 
written to Harriet, urging her to meet them in Switzerland, 
and assuring her of his intention to remain her friend. At 
Brunnen he began the fragment entitled The Assassins, a 
romantic tale of some power. After a brief stay here and at 
Lucerne, the travellers turned homeward, following the Reuss 
and the Rhine. The beauty of the latter river, from Mayence 
to Bonn, greatly impressed Shelley and influenced the scenic 
setting of Alastor. Rotterdam was reached September 8, 
and London once again a week later. 

During the remainder of the year Shelley and Mary 
suffered seriously from the want of income. Although 
Godwin indignantly refused to condone Shelley's course, he 



xxxiv INTEODUCTION 

freely accepted money from his scant purse and even asked 
for more. There is unconscious dramatic irony lurking in a 
passage concerning Godwin in one of Shelley's early letters 
to Miss Hitchener : " He remains unchanged. I have no 
soul-chilling alteration to record of his character.'' Harriet, 
too, was losing patience and troubling both Shelley and the 
God wins with increasing demands. On November 30 she gave 
birth to a boy, Charles Bysshe, who, with Ian the, was soon 
to become the subject of Chancery litigation. Peacock was 
proving himself an old friend ; Fanny Godwin was secretly 
kind ; but for the most part Shelley and Mary were let 
severely alone save for the companionship of Hogg, who 
called often, and Jane Clairmont (Claire), who declined to 
return home. Omnivorous reading solaced the evil time, — 
Anacreon, Coleridge, Spenser, Byron, Browne of Norwich, 
Gibbon, Godwin, etc. Claire, alert and olive-hued, often 
disturbed the household with her fears and doubts concern- 
ing the supernatural, and they were not unrelieved to see 
her depart,- in May, 1815, for a stay in Lynmouth. Shelley, 
for his part, had other fears, and was now moving from 
spot to spot in London, protecting himself as he might 
against the vigilance of the bailiffs. The new year brought 
important changes. Sir Bysshe passed away on January 6, 
Mr. Timothy Shelley became a baronet in his stead, and 
the poet succeeded his father as heir-apparent to the title and 
a great estate. He went down to Field Place, but was not 
welcomed. The question of entail again came up, and 
though Shelley declined to change his attitude, he was will- 
ing to sell his own reversion. Eventually he planned to dis- 
pose of his interest in a small part of the property for an 
annual income of £1000 during the joint survival of his 
father and himself, but Chancery would not later permit 
this plan to be realized. Money was advanced to meet his 
most pressing needs, and it is worthy of note that he im- 
mediately settled £200 a year upon Harriet, a like sum 
having been continued by Mr. Westbrook. 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

Shelley's health had of late become seriously impaired, 
and was not improved by the shock consequent upon the 
death, March 6, of Mary's first infant, hardly more than 
a fortnight old, and by the continued alienation of Godwin, 
whom he was aiding steadily. He bore Godwin's bitter 
letters very patiently save for one final outbreak of feeling : 
" Do not talk oi forgiveness again to me, for my blood boils 
in my veins, and my gall rises against all that bears the 
human form, when I think of what I, their benefactor and 
ardent lover, have endured of enmity and contempt from 
you and from all mankind." A trip of several days' dura- 
tion up the Thames to Lechlade, in the company of Mary, 
Peacock, and Charles Clairmont, Claire's brother, did much 
to restore the poet to health and good spirits. On his return 
to Bishopsgate he conceived and that autumn wrote the 
moving revelatory poem, Alastor, the first of his really sure 
and vital works, published the following March. Peace- 
ful months followed, of study and composition, whose sun- 
shine was made the brighter by the birth of William, Mary's 
second child, January 24, 1816. But Godwin's attitude, the 
coldness of others, and the failure of the lawyers satisfac- 
torily to adjust financial matters, — he was again dependent 
upon his father's voluntary advances, — led Shelley to heed 
the invitation of a voice of whose charms he could no longer 
be insensible. It was Switzerland's recall of him. that he 
heard and obeyed. Byron, whom he had not yet met, but 
with whom Claire had become only too well acquainted, was 
soon to arrive in Geneva, and the infatuated girl, keeping 
her secret from Shelley and Mary, asked and was permitted 
to become one of the party. Early in May, 1816, the trio, 
with little William, started again for Paris. They reached 
Geneva about the 14th, and shortly afterward Byron ap- 
peared. The two poets, though associated as contemporary 
apostles of revolution, were yet of very different fibres, — 
Byron, proud, passionate, fitfully purposive, like an alien 
bird oaring and flapping close to earth; Shelley, keen, 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION 

luminous, mild, sun-adventuring, sailing the upper ether of 
thought and love with tense but tireless wings. Each knew 
the other for a poet, — Shelley has drawn the two portraits 
for us in Julian and Maddalo^ — and they spent eager hours 
together and with Polidori, Byron's young Anglo-Indian 
physician, cruising about the lake, or exploring its shores. 
During this time Byron wrote some of the best stanzas 
of his Childe Harold^ Shelley conceived his Mont Blanc 
and Hymn to Intellectual Beauty^ and Mary began her 
famous romance, Frankenstein^ inspired by a ghostly con- 
versation between the poets and Polidori. The Shelley 
group had meanwhile secured a cottage near Coligny, and 
Byron was living at the Villa Diodati. While they circum- 
navigated the lake, Byron produced his Prisoner of Chil- 
ian and Shelley stored up countless memories of joy and 
beauty. After a visit of high emotion to Chamouni, Shelley 
and Mary received a rather melancholy letter from Fanny 
Godwin, and a month later left Geneva for Versailles, 
Havre, and Portsmouth. 

The year 1816 was a fatal one for several of Shelley's 
friends and connections. The death of Sir Bysshe was fol- 
lowed during the autumn by those of Fanny Godwin and 
Harriet Shelley, each of these women dying by her own 
hand. Fanny, who had been growing of late more and more 
dejected, feeling the unkindness of her stepmother and other 
relatives, and deprived of the immediate counsel of Shelley 
and Mary, decided that she was a useless cumberer of the 
ground, and took laudanum at Swansea, October 10. She 
had written only a week earlier an affectionate letter to 
Mary, who with Shelley was now staying at Bath, in which 
all her thoughts unselfishly went out to the welfare of God- 
win and the Shelleys. These were her sincere mourners. 
'^ Our feelings are less tumultuous than deep," wrote Godwin 
to Mary ; and she to Shelley, who went to Swansea suffer- 
ing great anguish of spirit : " If she had lived until this 
moment, she would have been saved, for my house would 



INTROD UCTION xxxvii 

then have been a proper asylum for her." Two months later 
the body of Harriet was found in the Serpentine River, after 
a disappearance of three weeks. She had, even as a school- 
girl, remotely contemplated such an ending, and now, with 
Shelley gone (though he was at this very time seeking her 
anxiously, that he might relieve her distresses), with her 
father and sister angered against her, and with a last friend 
unwilling longer to forward her happiness, she took the 
plunge with a despairing calmness. If she had wandered 
morally, she felt at least as justified as Shelley himself, whose 
social views were not capable of a uniformly beneficent appli- 
cation to concrete cases. Love, as she understood it, seemed 
indeed, by harsh evidence, thrown from its eminence. Yet 
her death was far less the specific outcome of Shelley's con- 
duct than it was the due result of a fatal flaw in her own 
character, and though Shelley felt acute and abiding regret, 
he cannot be said to have experienced remorse. We may 
briefly compare, in passing, the matrimonial beginnings of 
Shelley with those of his grandfather, and note the untimely 
closing of the waters over Shelley's head as over Harriet's. 
We must pass rapidly over the accompanying and depend- 
ent events of this season, — the renewal of old friendships, 
Godwin's persistent difficulties, the generous literary encour- 
agement of Shelley by Leigh Hunt, the reconciliation of 
Godwin to the poet, and the formal ceremony of marriage 
between Shelley and Mary at St. Mildred's Church, London, 
December 30. 

The care of his children, lanthe and Charles Bysshe, had 
been reluctantly and at her earnest request committed to 
Harriet by their father, who now sought to gain possession 
of them. His right to do so was stoutly contested by the 
Westbrooks, who filed a suit in Chancery to determine the 
question. They represented that Shelley, as the deserter 
of Harriet and the author of Queen Mab, was not a proper 
person to have control of the children's upbringing and 
education ; while Shelley's counsel argued that the poet 



xxxviii INTRODUCTION 

was justified in leaving Harriet, and that he had since that 
time faithfully supplied her needs, while it were intoler- 
able tyranny to wrest his children from him merely on ac- 
count of his intellectual conclusions. After two months of 
legal conflict the case was decided against both parties, Lord 
Eldon postponing final judgment until July 25, 1818, but 
declining to grant the custody of the children to either Shelley 
or Mr. Westbrook. At length it was determined to place 
lanthe and Charles in the care of Dr. and Mrs. Hume, of 
Brent End Lodge, Hanwell, persons n6minated by Shelley 
and paid chiefly by him and partly by the interest of a fund 
previously settled upon the children by Mr. Westbrook. 
Shelley keenly felt the injustice of the judgment, but pre- 
served a fine attitude throughout the proceedings. During 
this time he and Mary, with their child William, were for 
the most part resident at Marlow on the Thames. Before 
going thither, however, Shelley had met Keats, Hazlitt, and 
J. H. Reynolds, as fellow-guests of Leigh Hunt, and also 
Horace Smith, who became a close friend and sympathizer. 
At Marlow he spent more than a year of busy authorship, 
hospitality, and beneficence. As writer, he produced, among 
other pamphlets and poems, some remonstrant lines to Lord 
Eldon, Prince Athanasej part of Rosalind and Helen^ and 
Laon and Cythna, — afterward The Revolt of Islam^ — 
a stirring and eloquent prophecy of the triumph of the 
spirit of love and liberality. " I have attempted," he wrote 
to his publisher, ^'in the progress of my work to speak 
to the common elementary emotions of the human heart, 
so that though it is the story of violence and revolution, it is 
relieved by milder pictures of friendship and love and natural 
affections." As host, he entertained Peacock, Godwin, the 
Hunts, William Baxter, and Horace Smith, besides Claire 
and the little newcomer, Clara Allegra, daughter of Byron. 
As friend and helper, the poor of Marlow knew and loved 
him. On September 2, 1817, after the completion of Frank- 
enstein, a third child was born to Shelley and Mary, whom 



INTRODUCTION xxxix 

they named Clara Everina. Godwin's well-known novel, 
Mandeville, appeared during November, and Shelley cor- 
responded freely with its author as both admiring critic and 
purse-opener. 

" I think we ought to go to Italy," wrote restless Shelley 
to Mary late in 1817, after much earnest discussion of ways 
and means. Shelley's failing health, medical advice, Mary's 
own inclination, and the desire to help Claire toward an 
understanding with Byron, all conspired to this end. March 
12, 1818, saw the travellers once again — for Shelley now 
the last time — leaving the ancient cliffs of Dover for Calais. 
Had the poet known that he was to see his native land no 
more, his heart would have gone out to her in a high song 
of farewell, for despite his passionate desire to compass the 
reform of many of her laws and institutions, his life and 
letters at many points affectionately attest the strength of 
his love for England. 

The four closing years of Shelley's brief life were the 
happiest and most productive. Indeed, had these been 
denied him, his works would hardly have won large place 
in the memories and affections of men. Animation was his, 
bright and breathless ; power was his, earnest and unmis- 
takable ; but time and place were yet to bring their calm 
and their counsel to his too agitated spirit. What the clear 
sunny skies of Italy had done for Chaucer and Milton, what 
they were to reveal to Browning and his lyric love, they 
were now about to give to Shelley in abundant measure, 
and thereafter to keep protective watch above his clover- 
clustered Roman grave. 

The passage of the Alps was safely achieved, and the 
travellers reached, Milan, April 4. Thence Shelley and 
Mary proceeded to the Lake of Como, but, disappointed by 
their continued failure to find a suitable abode, they returned 
to Milan, shortly gathered their little flock together, and 
pressed on to Pisa and Leghorn, not, however, before Claire 
had satisfied the demand Byron made from Venice that she 



xl INTRODUCTION 

should relinquish to him the control of Allegra. At Leghorn 
they gladly met Mr. and Mrs. John Gisborne, the latter of 
whom, a bright, thoughtful woman, was an old friend of 
Godwin's, and the mother of Henry Reveley, Gisborne's 
stepson. After a few weeks in Leghorn, Shelley transferred 
his family to the Baths of Lucca, in the beautiful forest 
country north of Pisa. Here Rosalind and Helen was con- 
cluded, and here husband and wife spent memorable hours 
in the groves and vineyards, within sight of Apennine sum- 
mits. This life of calm was broken by the growing anxiety 
of Claire, whom Shelley at length accompanied to Venice to 
see Byron and Allegra. Claire found her little daughter at 
the home of the Hoppners, the English consul-general's fam- 
ily, who received the wayfarers with great hospitality. Shel- 
ley alone visited Byron, who heard him with friendly regard, 
but with little real consideration. He stressed his liking for 
Shelley, however, and insisted that he bring his family and 
Claire to live for a time in Byron's then unoccupied villa — 
I Cappuccini — at Este, among the Euganean Hills. Shel- 
ley accepted the invitation, and wrote to Mary asking her to 
meet him in Este. Little Clara was taken ill on the road, 
and after anxious days in the new home, the parents hastened 
with her to Venice to consult there a noted medico, but had 
hardly arrived when the child died. A week passed sadly in 
Venice before they returned to Este to find Claire again, and 
William, and Allegra. Now for some time having brooded 
his masterpiece, Prometheus Unbound, Shelley fell back 
upon present surroundings and recent memories, first pro- 
ducing Julian and Maddalo, and, in part at least, Lines 
Written among the Euganean Hills. The latter poem is of 
poignant and almost incredible lyric beauty ; the former has 
been already touched. By October 12 the poet, with Mary 
and William, was back in Venice, seeing much of Byron, 
admiring his genius but despising his excesses. After a brief 
return to Este and the re-delivery of Allegra to Byron, the 
hospitable villa was deserted and the faces of the four were 



IN TR 01) UCTION xli 

set southward for Naples. Here, notwithstanding his hope 
of improvement, a deep dejection, both physical and spirit- 
ual, seized upon Shelley, an almost Hamlet-like sense of isola- 
tion, from which he did not well recover until the early spring. 
It was now resolved to visit Rome, where they had spent 
but a week en route to Naples, and the completion of their 
first year in Italy was signalized by the entrance of the pil- 
grims into the Eternal City. They found themselves now 
somewhat less lonely ; acquaintances called ; steady reading 
went on ; and interested visits were paid to the Vatican, 
Villa Borghese, Pantheon, and Capitol. In the remote and 
solitary moments of his frequent walks about the ruins of 
the Baths of Caracalla, Shelley almost completed his great 
lyrical drama, Prometheus Unbound^ among at once the 
gentlest and proudest vindications of the human spirit. He 
felt his inevitable way to the symbolic heart of this noble 
myth, as imagined and made vital not only by ^schylus 
and others, but by the high instinct of man he had himself 
developed. Here Shelley's prime idea of the self-saving 
and self-justifying power of Love reaches its surest and 
most elevated expression. 

A long reaction and an anticipation of evil to come led 
the poet to long again for at least a brief visit to England, 
"out of pure weakness of heart." The temperamental 
barometer proved true. On June 7 William, the most fondly 
cherished of the children, passed away. The English bury- 
ing-ground, hard-by the Porta San Paolo, received the little 
body, and Shelley and Mary were left desolate indeed. The 
mother's melancholy, in truth, became so intense that Shelley 
decided upon Leghorn and Mrs. Gisborne as the place and 
person most suited to her at the moment, and rented, accord- 
ingly, the Villa Valsovano there. He himself had urged his 
doubtful steps through many a gloom, and felt for the thrice- 
bereaved mother no less than he felt with her. " We must 
all weep on these occasions," wrote Leigh Hunt to Mary, 
" and it is better for the kindly fountains within us that we 



xlii INTRODUCTION 

should. May you weep quietly, but not long ; and may the 
calmest and most affectionate spirit that comes out of the 
contemplation of great things, and the love of all, lay his 
most blessed hand upon you." When Mary would be much 
alone Shelley read and thought as rapidly and as eagerly as 
ever, adventuring through Dante, Boccaccio, and Calderon, 
and praising the Spanish dramatist with discriminating en- 
thusiasm. Now, too, he finished his own deeply stirring 
drama, The Cenci, conceived more than a year before, after 
reading an old MS. at Leghorn, and viewing Guido's sup- 
posed portrait of Beatrice in the Colonna Palace at Rome. 
This production, touched as it is with weaknesses of phras- 
ing and of dramatic " business," — the dramatist sometimes 
hinders the poet, — is yet comparable, as a study in the spirit 
of hate and villainy, only with Shakespeare's Richard III 
and Browning's Guido ; while Cordelia, Pompilia, and 
Beatrice form the triad of great women in English poetry. 
The fifth act is by far the most powerful, not only because 
it contains the " tremendous end," but because Shelley raises 
here a nigh unfettered wing in soul-criticism and dramatic 
range. 

In Florence, where the autumn of 1819 found them settled, 
Shelley spent many days visiting the great galleries of paint- 
ing and statuary, though with increasing physical unrest. On 
November 12 a last child was born to him, christened Percy 
Florence, who survived both his father and mother, and in- 
herited the baronetcy. The prevailing discontent in Eng- 
land, with which Shelley deeply sympathized, occasioned at 
this time the writing of his Songs and Poems for the Men 
of England^ and his Masque of Anarchy, — poems of peace- 
ful poise but revolutionary impulse, — and a thoughtful 
treatise, A Philosophical View of Reform. A translation 
of Euripides' The Cyclops, the creation of an additional 
act of the Prometheus, and the breathing of the subtly 
lyric incantation to the spirit of the West Wind, all belong 
to this great creative year. It is interesting to note the loyal 



INTRODUCTION xliii 

human interest Slielley took during this winter in his friend 
Reveley's projected steamship, an interest that did not hesi- 
tate to provide ill-to-be-spared money for the advancement 
of what was almost a foredoomed failure. The extreme cold 
of early January, 1820, drove him at length to Pisa, where 
most of his time was thenceforth to be spent. A small group 
of friends cheered Shelley and Mary here, during the few 
intervals not given over to study and composition, — friends 
not unwelcome, since the Gisbornes and Henry Reveley 
were now leaving for England. Though the poet's health 
was responding favourably to the change of climate, God- 
win's monotonous embarrassments and demands preyed upon 
his spirits, and he was obliged to protect Mary from full 
knowledge of her father's rapacity. There were other sources 
of perplexity and even anger that greatly disturbed the 
Shelleys at this time, — a grossly unfair attack upon the 
poet in the Quarterly Review, and a scandal spread abroad 
by a vicious servant which it took some time to check and 
refute. With the advent of midsummer the heat grew so 
intense that a move was made to the proffered home of 
the absent Gisbornes, Casa Ricci, in Leghorn, where — fol- 
lowing the Pisan lyric. The Cloud — the Ode to a Sky- 
lark was written. Probably the music of the Spenserian 
Alexandrines, for he had long loved the Faerie Queene, 
rang in Shelley's ears as he penned this exulting yet regret- 
ful cry. Among the other poems of 1820 are the Letter 
to Maria Gisborne, The Sensitive Plant , The Witch of 
Atlas, Hymn to Mercury, Ode to Liberty, and Ode to 
Naples. By August the heat was unbearable, and another 
change was made to the Baths of San Giuliano di Pisa. 
Shelley's interest in European political conditions was 
acute, and he watched with keen solicitude the course of 
the revolutions in Spain and Naples, greatly regretting the 
eventual success of the Austrians in restoring the false 
Neapolitan king. During the early months of 1821 he 
sought and found social reinforcement of his views. The 



xliv INTRODUCTION 

Gisbornes were back, though a lively misunderstanding pre- 
vented an early renewal of old ties ; and Thomas Med- 
win, the poet's cousin and former schoolmate, had found 
his not too welcome way to Pisa. Over against these was 
the finer intelligence and exalted spirit of the Greek pa- 
triot, Alexander Mavrocordato, to whom Shelley's prophetic 
drama, Hellas, was afterward dedicated ; the finesse of 
Francesco Pacchiani, aPisan academician; the good-natured 
vapidity of Count Taaffe ; the skilful improvisations of the 
famous Sgricci ; and the pathetic durance of the Contessina 
Emilia Viviani, beloved alike by Shelley, Mary, and Claire. 
Condemned, with her sister, to the strict seclusion of a con- 
vent life by a jealous stepmother and an indifferent father, 
Emilia was in evil case, and this, with her exquisite loveli- 
ness, so wrought upon Shelley's imagination that he sought 
continually to deliver her from the Intolerance he had so 
of ten scourged of old. He became her " caro fratello " and 
Mary her " dearest sister." The profound though passing 
influence exerted upon Shelley by her character and situ- 
ation is apparent in his Epipsychidion. " It is," he wrote 
to Gisborne, after many months, " an idealized history of 
my life and feelings. I think one is always in love with 
something or other ; the error — and I confess it is not easy 
for spirits cased in flesh and blood to avoid it — consists in 
seeking in a mortal image the likeness of what is, perhaps, 
eternal." The ''isle under Ionian skies," an idea which 
had so strong a hold upon Shelley's fancy, ^ as upon the 
youthful Browning's,^ here achieves its right poetic value. 
Emilia married at last a Signor Biondi, and lived but a 
brief and checkered life. It was fitting though almost acci- 

^ Cf. letter of August, 1821, to Mary : " My greatest content would 
be utterly to desert all human society. I would retire with you and 
our child to a solitary island in the sea and build a boat, and shut 
upon ray retreat the floodgates of the world." Cf. also Prometheus, 
IV, iv, 200, 201. 

2 Cf. Pippa Passes, ii, 314-327. 



INTE OD UCTION xl V 

dental that at this time Shelley should put into critical form 
his own noble theory of poetry, published after his death. 

Soon after the departure of Claire, who was now engaged 
in tutoring certain young Florentines, there arrived in Pisa 
friends of Medwin, Lieutenant Edward Elliker Williams 
and his wife Jane. The Shelieys, both husband and wife, 
were much pleased with the newcomers, who in their turn 
attached themselves with sympathy and understanding to 
their fellow-exiles. With Williams and Reveley the poet 
would sail the Arno in a light Arthurian shallop that on one 
exciting occasion suddenly overset, nearly ending Shelley, 
the non-swimmer, then and there. Notwithstanding this 
mishap his love for nautical excursions grew into a passion, 
nearly every day found him on the water, and on May 4, 
he even undertook a venturesome excursion with Reveley 
from the mouth of the Arno to Leghorn. In San Giuliano 
the case was not different, and it was here, indeed, that The 
Boat on the Serchio was born. Here also was produced 
the last of Shelley's completed major poems, Adonais, writ- 
ten in memory of John Keats. 

Upon hearing of Keats's illness and of his arrival im Italy, 
Shelley had urged him to accept the invitation to Pisa he 
had previously extended, but poor Keats was already strug- 
gling with death, and yielded himself at Rome, February 
23, 1821. Shelley received the news some weeks later, 
probably in a letter from England, and began almost imme- 
diately to brood his elegy. He had not known Keats well, 
had variously estimated his work, and had scarcely sympa- 
thized with his consuming passion for his art. Indeed, he had 
written Keats an earnest word concerning his own free- 
dom from " system and mannerism," instancing the I^ro- 
metheiis and The CencL Over-regularity he had sought to 
avoid. " I wish those who excel me in genius would pursue 
the same plan." And Keats had good-humouredly replied : 
" An artist must serve Mammon ; he must have ' self -con- 
centration ' — selfishness, perhaps. You, I am sure, will for- 



xlvi INTRODUCTION 

give me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your 
magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every 
rift of your subject with ore." Shelley did not much ad- 
mire Endymion, but he thought Hyperion " grand poetry," 
the product of "transcendent genius." He sincerely re- 
spected Keats, though he failed to understand him, and it 
is matter for large regret that the two poets, because of the 
sensitiveness of the one and the too lately aroused concern 
of the other, did not find a closer union — a communion — 
possible. The poem itself, written in Spenserians, is as a 
pure elegy unequalled in our language. It sounds the deeps 
of death, for Keats, for Shelley, for all " the inheritors of 
unfulfilled renown." It was first printed at Pisa, with the 
types of Didot. >' I am especially curious," wrote Shelley 
to his English publisher, Oilier, "to hear the fate of 
Adonais. I confess I should be surprised if that poem 
were born to an immortality of oblivion." 

After a flying visit to Florence, house-hunting on behalf 
of Horace Smith, who was defending him against calumnies 
consequent upon the pirated republication of Queen Mab, 
and who failed, eventually, to reach Italy, Shelley journeyed 
to Ravenna early in August, 1821, to become the guest of 
Byron at the Guiccioli Palace. He found his fellow-poet 
less extravagant than before in conduct, if not in criticism 
of all things. Had he known of Byron's perfidy in failing 
to suppress — indeed actually using — reports against Shel- 
ley's honour, — a perfidy completed when he engaged yet 
failed to deliver to Mrs. Hoppner an important letter written 
to her by Mary, — it is doubtful whether he would have 
consented to meet Byron again. As it was, he found life 
in Ravenna none too pleasant, and though he was captivated 
with the fifth canto of Don Juan, as Byron read it, and 
felt his own inability to rival the facility of such art, yet 
both Byron's personality and his very genius oppressed 
Shelley, and he left Ravenna for Pisa August 17. Before 
long, however, Byron and his companion had decided to 



INTRODUCTION xlvii 

come also to Pisa, taking the Lanfranchi Palace on the 
Lung' Amo. Byron had suggested to Shelley at Ravenna 
that they and Leigh Hunt should unite in founding a peri- 
odical, to contain representative future work from each of 
them. Shelley now took up the plan with enthusiasm, so far 
at least as it concerned Hunt, and, learning of his friend's 
serious illness in England, wrote proposing his departure for 
Italy. Hunt reached Leghorn early in July, 1822, but the 
affectionate welcome with which Shelley greeted him was 
to be both the beginning and the end of the renewed com- 
radeship for which each was hungering. 

But a few miles up the coast from Pisa lies the Gulf of 
Spezia, whither Shelley and Mary, with Claire, who had 
rejoined them, travelled in September, 1821, seeking a nest 
for time to come. They explored the enchanting shores with 
delight, and returned happy in the assurance that they had 
found their summer haven for the succeeding year. Shortly 
afterward they left the Baths, and re-established themselves 
in Pisa proper, at the Tre Palazzi di Chiesa, opposite the 
Lanfranchi Palace and Byron, inviting the Williams family 
to occupy the lower floor. The Shelleys — free for the mo- 
ment from the cares of authorship, now that Hellas and 
Mary's Valperga were concluded — read freely, discussed 
high matters with Byron and the Williamses, or beguiled the 
time with Medwin and Taaffe. Shelley himself walked and 
rode and sailed not a little, or Byron would mischievously 
invite him to a formal dinner, for the sake of watching his 
unease, or would 'read his Cain to a hearer even more 
appreciative, perhaps, than its creator. Byron placed great 
value upon Shelley's critical opinions, asserting that " he, 
alone, in this age of humbug, dares stem the current, as he 
did to-day the flooded Arno in his skiff, although I could not 
observe he made any progress." These words are quoted 
from the original Recollections of Edward John Trelawny, 
a Cornishman, and friend of Medwin and Williams, who, 
though still young, had led a wild and varied career. He 



xlvlii INTRODUCTION 

arrived in Pisa, at Williams's instance, January 14, 1822, 
hoping to secure Williams and other recruits for a summer 
cruise on the Mediterranean. He was a man of fine phy- 
sique, dark, tall, and strong, " a kind of half-Arab Eng- 
lishman," as Mary described him, whose frank manner and 
adventurous disposition soon won him the regard of the 
little colony on the Lung' Arno. His Records of Shelley ^ 
Byron and the Author are, though somewhat inaccurate, 
peculiarly interesting and readable. Shelley found him a 
valorous figure, a ready-to-hand symbol of knight-errantry, 
and drew a poetic picture of him in Fragments of an Un- 
finished Drama. Williams and Shelley, with Byron's party, 
soon formed a league with Trelawny for the ensuing descent 
upon Spezia, and he was commissioned to order a little 
schooner from Captain Daniel Roberts, an old friend then 
staying at Genoa. Early in February Shelley and Williams 
left for Spezia to secure houses, but returned to announce 
that only one good residence was to be had, and that this 
was '' to serve for all." The "all," however, became limited 
by Byron's defection. During the softly beautiful days of 
the Tuscan spring Shelley wrote his three lyrics to Jane 
Williams, originally intended only for the private reading of 
her husband and herself. He was also at work on the frag- 
mentary drama, Charles the First. 

It was fortunate for the Shelleys that Byron decided 
against going to Spezia. Not Byron's posing humours, to 
which Shelley was accustomed, but his steady cruelty toward 
Claire, despite all intervention, slowly wore out Shelley's 
friendship, and it was therefore with relief on all grounds 
that he accepted Byron's decision. Claire's anxiety for Al- 
legra, who soon thereafter died in an unhealthful convent, 
caused her such suffering that Shelley and Mary resolved to 
take her with them. On April 26 Trelawny escorted Mary 
and Claire to Spezia, followed the next day by Shelley and 
the Williamses. By May 1 the party were settled in Casa 
Magni, a picturesque but not too comfortable villa on the 



INTBODUCTION xlix 

Bay of Lerici, near the fishing-hamlet of San Terenzo. 
Claire, apprised at length of Allegra's death, returned for 
a time to Florence, and Trelawny proceeded to Genoa, there 
to lend a hand in Captain Roberts's boat-building. This now 
included not only Shelley's craft, but a yacht, the Bolivar, 
for Byron. 

On May 12 the long-expected boat arrived, built from the 
somewhat eccentric plans of Williams, but so swift and grace- 
ful that Ariel became her name of right, rather than Don 
Juan, as Trelawny had named her during the original part- 
nership. Charles Vivian, a young sailor-lad, one of the crew 
who brought her, was retained, and made a quietly efiicient 
helper to the too pleased and energetic Williams and the 
book-preoccupied Shelley, who, delegated to steer, used 
often er than not to put the helm the wrong way. Trelawny 
and Roberts touched at Spezia, June 13, with Byron's yacht, 
and Trelawny went on to Leghorn three days later. Whether 
on land or sea, Shelley was almost constantly reading or 
musing, though at times his mood was as quick and merry 
as a child's at play. The Triumph of Life, begun at Pisa, 
and continued at Casa Magni, is the last fine fragment of 
his poetic work. The poem is touched with a deeper and 
truer philosophy than of old, the fruit of maturing expe- 
rience, and leads us to feel that, if time had been his, he 
would have become at once more human and more catholic, 
less impatient for the renovation of life, more penetrating 
in its interpretation. 

In many of Shelley's most haunting songs there is heard 
the echoing whisper of early death. Never of a really robust 
constitution, and subject during his last years to spasms of 
acute pain, he insensibly allowed his youthfully pensive anti- 
cipations to take on a more settled habit. When boating with 
Byron during the summer of 1816 and threatened with acci- 
dental death, he felt in the prospect, he wrote to Peacock, 
" a mixture of sensations, among which terror entered, though 
but subordinately." Trelawny tells us that Shelley remained 



1 INTRODUCTION 

inert at the bottom of a deep pool in the Arno during the 
progress of the only swimming lesson he seems to have 
taken, and had to be hastily rescued. "When he recovered 
his breath, he said : ' I always find the bottom of the well, 
and they say Truth lies there. In another minute I should 
have found it, and you would have found an empty shell.' '' 
And at Casa Magni, oaring the boat one day into deep water, 
with Jane Williams and her babes as passengers, he sat 
silent a while, at last looking up and exclaiming : '' Now let 
us together solve the great mystery ! " Williams writes of 
what, perhaps, was the strangest portent of all, the vision 
that came to Shelley in May of a child like AUegi-a rising 
from the sea, to smile at him and clap her hands in joy. 

Early in June Claire returned to Casa Magni, and assisted 
in nursing Mary, who became for a week or more seriously 
ill. Though attended by Shelley with unrelaxing devotion, 
she improved but slowly. By July Hunt's announced de- 
parture from Genoa for Leghorn determined Shelley and 
Williams to sail for the same port, that they might there 
welcome him to Italy, and see his family safely housed in 
the lower floor of the Lanfranchi Palace at Pisa. With 
vague fears Mary saw her husband embark, and " cried bit- 
terly when he went away."^ The voyage was pleasant and 
speedy, but disappointment awaited the voyagers. Although 
Hunt had arrived and was greeted with affectionate warmth, 
Byron, as it happened, was sulking at a slight put upon him 
by the Italian authorities, and was resolved to quit the lit- 
erary enterprise and the country at once. It was imperative 
that Shelley should appeal to Byron on behalf of Hunt's 
necessity and good faith, which he did with so much force 
and reason that a satisfactory programme was at last ar- 
ranged. By July 7 all was settled, and the poet, turning 
to Mrs. Hunt, as the three friends strolled about Pisa, 
exclaimed : " If I die to-morrow, I have lived to be older 
than my father ; I am ninety years of age.'' 
^ From a letter to Mrs. Gisborne. 



INTRODUCTION li 

Prophetic words ! Farewells were exchanged, Hunt put 
into Shelley's hands a copy of Keats's last volume, and the 
evening shadows of the Leghorn road swallowed up the 
form of his friend. On the morrow, July 8, 1822, both the 
port authorities and the friends of Williams and Shelley at 
Leghorn were disturbed by signs of tempest. Captain Rob- 
erts, in particular, sought to detain them for another day. 
But dissuasion was of no avail. Both were anxious to return 
to Casa Magni, and shortly after noon, with the lad Vivian, 
they set sail, watched anxiously by the glasses of Roberts 
and Trelawny. A few hours later a thunderstorm broke in 
earnest, the several smaller craft scurrying before it into 
harbour. Trelawny was stationed on board the anchored 
Bolivar, whence he did not retire until dark. Roberts saw 
the last of the Ariel from the lighthouse tower. It was a 
speck some miles out at sea, but his glass descried the occu- 
pants taking in the topsail. 

Not for several days did the sea relinquish its dead, cast- 
ing up Shelley's body near Via Reggio, and Williams's 
about three miles distant, in Tuscan territory. The end had 
come, and Shelley's life of light and song, — 

*' . . . its pinions disarrayed of might, 
Drooped ; o'er it closed the echoes far away 
Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, 
As waves which lately paved his watery way 
Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play." 

Some weeks passed before Vivian's body was found. 

The anxiety of the women at Casa Magni soon deepened 
into alarm, and, on the Friday following the fatal Monday, 
drove them into Pisa. They saw Byron first, and then 
Roberts and Trelawny at Leghorn. None could comfort 
them. After anguished conversations they were persuaded 
to return to Lerici, accompanied by Trelawny. The bodies, 
much mutilated, were found July 17 and 18. In one of 
Shelley's pockets was a volume of Sophocles, in the other 
the borrowed copy of Keats, turned back at The Eve of St. 



Hi INTROBUCTION 

Agnes, The stringency of the Italian quarantine law made 
it necessary to secure permission to cremate the bodies — 
already officially buried in quicklime on the shore — in 
order to preserve the ashes for later interment. On August 
15, Trelawny, Hunt, and Byron gathered on the beach; 
the funeral pyre for Williams's body was made ready, and 
was lit by Trelawny. " The materials being dry and resin- 
ous the pine-wood burnt furiously, and drove us back. It 
was hot enough before, there was no breath of air, and the 
loose sand scorched our feet. As soon as the flames became 
clear, and allowed us to approach, we threw frankincense 
and salt into the furnace, and poured a flask of wine and 
oil over the body. The Greek oration was omitted, for we 
had lost our Hellenic bard." The next day, at Via Reggio, 
Shelley's remains were similarly treated, before a group of 
curious native spectators. The story is realistically told by 
Trelawny. "What surprised us all," he concludes, ** was that 
the heart remained entire. In snatching this relic from the 
fiery furnace, my hand was severely burnt ; and had any one 
seen me do the act I should have been put into quarantine." 
The final burial of the poet's ashes took place, by Mary's 
desire, in the Protestant cemetery at Rome, in a tomb built 
by Trelawny within a recess of the old Roman wall. This 
was covered with solid stone, bearing an inscription in Latin 
written by Leigh Hunt, with a passage added by Trelawny 
from The Tem,pest^ well loved by Shelley : — 

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 

COR CORDIUM 

NATUS IV AUG. MDCCXCn 

OBIIT VIII JUL. MDCCCXXII 

" Nothing of him that doth fade 
But doth Buffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange." 

In the companion tomb lies Trelawny, whose grave is in- 
scribed with Shelley's lines. The Epitaph. Not far away 



INTRODUCTION liii 

are the graves of John Keats and Joseph Severn, and that 
of John Addington Symonds, lover and biographer of Shel- 
ley. ' And all about grow every sorte of flowre/ — violets 
and daisies, roses and clover, and over all the tall, dark 
cypresses wave solemn boughs. 

SHELLEY AS POET ^ 

There is nothing more difficult to define than Poetry, be- 
cause there is nothing more Protean. The statements are 
as various as the creators and the critics, and it is well that 
it is so, for particularity and insistent dicta are foreign to 
the spirit of literature. Literature is large and catholic ; it 
is in its essence a mystery, incapable of precise scientific 
analysis ; it is an unquenchable spiritual impulse and adven- 
ture realized in words ; it is the interpretation of the dream 
of life ; and with its instinct humanity is inalienably en- 
dowed. " You cannot escape Literature," declared Sidney 
Lanier. " For how can you think yourself out of thought ? 
How can you run away from your own feet ? " 

Yet there are at least three qualities that may seem to 
determine the literary artist, the poet. He must, first, seek 
pure truth with a devoted and single-minded enthusiasm, 
whatever the cost. He must cherish every hint, every gleam. 
He must catch the rhythms of the noisy life about him as 
those of the sea and the forest. He must be at heart a man of 
intense social sympathy, yet of a lonely habit. Certainly, 
he will belong the more truly to the world of men because he 
does not belong to them. He must be for mankind — 

* The only speaker of essential truth, 
Opposed to relative, comparative 
And temporal truths.' 

" Poets," said Shelley, " are the unacknowledged legislators 
of the world." And again, " A poem is the very image of life 

1 The attempt has been made to touch the biographical sketch with 
criticism. The present treatment aims to derive general critical prin- 
ciples from the particulars already given. 



liv INTRODUCTION 

expressed in its eternal truth." The place of the poet is high 
but hard. It is his, above others, to experience with forti- 
tude '' the baptism in salt water," to suffer nobly in life 
and even at times in art for his power's sake. If slowly 
and with struggle, yet he still spells out his word. Shelley's 
solitary figure of Alastor was not, we must think, unhappy, 
though his ear was holden to hear "the eternal note of 
sadness." 

The poet must have, also, fine sensibility to the beauty that 
lurks in language. This is the plastic material with which 
he works, — positively, in words; negatively, in silences. 
His diction must be sure, representing life and repre- 
senting him. He must be keenly aware of the dignity of 
words, their music, colours, individualities, and kinships. His 
poems must not be word-prisons, but word-homes. And to 
this regard for words — indeed, as conditioning and justify- 
ing such regard — he must, last, add an impelling insight 
into the root rightness of things. Art, with its hunger for 
truth and its passion for beauty, feeds also and always upon 
good, upon the law of love and virtue. A fine-grained aesthete 
must the artist be ; but he must be, before and beyond that, 
a man. One in any field who delights to picture the unholy 
for its own sake, who is preoccupied rather with the tempo- 
rary alliance of energy and evil than with the struggle 
that makes for character — such an one is not less dead to 
beauty than to good. It is quite true that the professed 
moralizer has no place in pure literature, for he is a brief- 
holder, a special pleader, and does not see and show impar- 
tially. "A poet would do ill," thought Shelley, "to embody 
his own conceptions of right and wrong, which are usually 
those of his place and time, in his poetical creations, which 
participate in neither." Yet it is also true that life is seen 
by the poet as a unit, and that art, like life, is of moral 
significance. Every great artist is implicitly devoted to the 
idea of good, is sincerely on the better side. All sure literary 
masterpieces are marked by unmistakable signs of love for 



INTRODUCTION Iv 

that which is holy, whatever plot or method may appear. 
No genius, however erratip, therefore, has been radically 
vicious. Though the light he lives in may sometimes blind 
him, it will not blast him. Extraordinary sincerity is de- 
manded in art, whole-hearted allegiance to one's ideal and 
inspiration, and lifelong perseverance in the attempt to realize 
these. " Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the 
divinity in man." 

Notwithstanding the varying emphases of the great poets, 
— variations often more apparent than real, — it will be 
found that their lives and their works satisfy these condi- 
tions. It is easy to distinguish Shelley's poetry from Words- 
worth's, or from Shakespeare's, and yet it would sometimes 
be a good deal less easy were it not for the single fact of 
style, — the characteristic clothing, or rather the special 
way in which each man's work wears its clothing. Even 
so, there are brief passages in Alastor that Wordsworth 
might have uttered, and lyric touches in the Prometheus 
that would not readily be wrested as spurious from one of 
Shakespeare's romantic comedies. The truth is, that Poetry, 
too, is one, and that, as Shelley himself so finely phrases it, 
"poetical abstractions are beautiful and new, not because 
the portions of which they are composed had no previous 
existence in the mind of man or in nature, but because the 
whole produced by their combination has some intelligible 
and beautiful analogy with those sources of emotion and 
thought, and with the contemporary condition of them : one 
great poet is a masterpiece of nature which another not only 
ought to study but must study. He might as wisely and as 
easily determine that his mind should no longer be the mirror 
of all that is lovely in the visible universe, as exclude from 
his contemplation the beautiful which exists in the writings 
of a great contemporary. ... A poet is the combined 
product of such internal powers as modify the nature of 
others ; and of such external influences as excite and sustain 
these powers ; he is not one, but both. Every man's mind 



Ivi INTRODUCTION 

is, ill this respect, modified by all the objects of nature and 
art ; by every word and every suggestion which he ever ad- 
mitted to act upon his consciousness ; it is the mirror upon 
which all forms are reflected, and in which they compose 
one form. Poets, not otherwise than philosophers, painters, 
sculptors, and musicians, are, in one sense, the creators, and, 
in another, the creations, of their age. From this subjection 
the loftiest do not escape." ^ 

Shelley, for his part, saturated himself as a youth in the 
plays of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other Elizabethans; 
in the Faerie Queene of Spenser (whose influence on suc- 
ceeding English poets, particularly Milton and Keats, has 
justly, won for him the title of "the poets' poet"); in 
Homer and the Greek tragedies ; in Theocritus, Moschus, 
and Bion ; in Horace, Ovid, Virgil, and Lucretius ; in Tasso, 
Ariosto, and lesser Italians ; in Milton's austere epic and his 
minor works ; and in the poems of Scott, Moore, Southey, 
Wordsworth, and Coleridge. Goethe, too, he read. In later 
years he praised much Calderon and Dante, and read Byron 
with the added interest their frequent contact aroused. This 
is but a partial catalogue of the poetry he eagerly absorbed — 
the prose was correspondingly considerable — and which 
more and more discovered to him his powers and opportun- 
ities, as his own works did for Browning in a later day. He 
was stirred and moved, also, by the great Biblical poems 
and dramas, — the book of Job especially. 

The living persons who most influenced Shelley have been 
already mentioned and described in the sketch of his life, 
and there also it was shown how deeply his imagination was 
affected by the elemental forces of nature. Forces, — be- 
cause. Titanic or delicate as the object might be, Mont Blanc 
or a skylark, Shelley seems chiefly concerned with its incen- 
tive, the spirit that gives it being and direction. He sees 
nature neither as vast painted scenery against which as 
against a background man plays his part, nor yet as the 
1 From the Preface to Prometheus Unbound. 



INTRODUCTION Ivii 

unreal projection of human thought and fancy. Responsive 
as he is to every sensuous impression, and eager to trace the 
course of human destiny in the symbolic aspects of nature, he 
yet characteristically regards all natural phenomena as vital 
in themselves and for themselves, understanding man no 
less than understood by him, honouring their own dignity as 
members of the spiritual economy of the universe, and 
calmer and truer in their movement toward destiny than 
the mortals who live among them in alternating fits of 
love and cruelty, of fear and hope. Into their spiritual 
brotherhood the illumined may gain access, but only on 
terms of purity and unselfishness. What they reveal to such 
is revealed for the large sake of all, not for the little, local 
gain of a wandering human. Nature and man are tending 
toward the high estate of perfect love, and each will be the 
better for the other's understanding friendship. Prometheus, 
the ideal of Man, and Asia, transfigured Nature, will at 
length become united in one being, that Light of which 
the poet sings in Adonais — 

*' . . . whose smile kindles the Universe, 
That Beauty in which all things work and move, 
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse 
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining* Love 
Which, through the web of being blindly wove 
By man and beast and earth and air and sea, 
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
The fire for which all thirst." 

It will thus be seen that Shelley is at one with the roman- 
tic temper of his age in ascribing to nature a spiritual quality 
and significance, and in regarding man's life as symbolic 
and progressive ; but he goes beyond Romanticism — Words- 
worthian Romanticism at least — in his idea of the vigor- 
ously dynamic life of nature, an idea he holds in common 
with modern physicists, save that with him nature is almost 
everywhere apotheosized. Wordsworth, though he informed 
nature with intense spiritual meaning, yet saw it in familiar 
images and in rather still habitudes. Even at its highest, 



Ivill INTRODUCTION 

nature in his work is somewhat domesticized, at least local- 
ized, in tinge, and is often comparatively hushed and sta- 
tionary. Where it moves and energizes it does so slowly, 
and within limits. In brief, its tone is the tone of the phe- 
nomenal tenanted in time by the Eternal, rather than that 
of a rushing mighty wind. To Wordsworth nature is the 
garment of the Eternal ; to Shelley, its movement. Shelley 
makes his pictures less pictures than actional prophecies. 
Arethusa leaps down the rocks, the Night swiftly walks over 
the western wave, the skylark pants forth a flood of rapture, 
the West Wind is a wild spirit moving everywhere, and 
" Follow ! Follow ! " cry the echoing Voices to Panthea and 
Asia in the Prometheus, The very mythological largeness 
of many of his nature-conceptions — Greek in body but 
intensely modern and fervent in spirit — gives them a power 
that stirs and draws even usually unemotional readers. His 
poetry illustrates one of his own cardinal doctrines as critic, 
it " compels us to feel that which we perceive, and to imagine 
that which we know." 

For Shelley is nearly always a coursing poet. There is 
sun in his work, and wind and storm. An " enemy of so- 
ciety," he was yet an anxious lover and reformer of man- 
kind. Against occasional laws he rebelled, considering only 
the laws of the spirit to be binding and immutable. He was 
always a Platonist in temper, and early became one also by 
conviction. All that man needs, he thought, is freedom to 
think and to act. Granted relief from fear and tyranny, he 
cannot fail to come out into the light of love. His instinct 
will lead him if he will but trust it, for it is not blind, but 
is made purposeful by the Power, the Spirit, that helps all 
things finally to realize themselves in love. Man has been 
shamefully abused, drugged, made mad, by oppression, self- 
ishness, and dread. Let him become himself — 

"Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul, 

Whose nature is its own divine control , 
Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea ; 



INTRODUCTION lix 

Familiar acts are beautiful through love ; 
Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove 
Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle they could be ! 

" His will, with all mean passions, bad delights, 
And selfish cares, its trembling satellites, 

A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey, 
Is as a tempest-winged ship, whose helm 
Love rules through waves which dare not overwhelm, 

Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sovereign sway. 

" The lightning is his slave ; heaven's utmost deep 

Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep 
They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on ! 
The tempest is his steed, he strides the air ; 
And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare : 
' Heaven, hast thou secrets ? Man unveils me ; I have none/ '* 

In order to clear man's way for him Shelley discovers not 
only his internal foes, but also the external enemies which 
encourage these, — King and Priest. Against political and 
ecclesiastical tyrants he lifts up a burning voice, in his Ode 
to Liberty, Revolt of Islam, Pi'ometheus, and The CencL 
Here he is at one with the most ardent spirits of the modern 
revolutionary era, though in point of patience ^ he had much 
to learn. It seemed to Shelley that personal prosperity 
and content meant nearly always a selfish blindness to the 
woes of others ; it seemed to him that the world at large 
was in the grip of baneful and intolerable custom ; that men 
were smugly and fatuously wearing shackles that not only 
hampered their movements but corroded their very souls ; 
and that all that was necessary to their deliverance was 
acceptance of the spirit of love in place of the dictates of 

1 In matters intimately affecting himself, however, Shelley some- 
times showed extraordinary long-suffering. Note the mildness of the 
following rebuke in a letter to James Oilier, his publisher : " Mr. Gis- 
borne has sent me a copy of the Prometheus, which is certainly most 
beautifully printed. It is to be regretted that the errors of the press 
are so numerous, and in many respects so destructive of the sense of 
a species of poetry which, I fear, even without this disadvantage, very 
few will understand or like." 



Ix INTRODUCTION 

what they called law,^ a willingness to see and assume man- 
kind's heritage of freedom of soul, and a determination no 
longer to submit to the whims and wilfulnesses of self -con- 
stituted exploiters. In brief, Shelley was a thorough-going 
Eadical in thought, in teaching, and in deed, though a 
many-sided one. He was wholesomely earnest in his desire 
for the world's betterment, yet he was, in. his personal rela- 
tions, sometimes strangely unsensitive in his very sensitive- 
ness. He was hardly willing that men should encounter and 
overthrow tyranny with its own weapons, and yet he was 
deeply impatient of their long hesitation to be free. If 
Wordsworth was a priest of Liberty, and Byron its soldier, 
Shelley rather was its young prophet, who brooded, and 
promised, and exhorted, and lamented, in turn. 

Too often his poetry struck the note of grief at the list- 
lessness and insufficiency of human life. It is interesting to 
note with what unrest he time after time contrasts life with 
death, the waking consciousness with sleep. Indeed, there 
are few of the romantic poets who are not moved to noble 
utterance on these twin themes. In Coleridge, Wordsworth, 
Shelley, Keats, and Byron, such references recur again and 
again. For the sleep-experience, it seems to the poet, pro- 
vides for him a way of escape from the weaknesses and 
wrongs of mortality, rescues him from his own and his 
fellows' littleness, gives his imagination the right and the 
power to assert its mastery and go on its unchecked adven- 
ture. So, too, as in sleep he dies to the world of fact, from 
sleep he rises with enlarged horizon, with cleared and 
refreshed spirit. 

*^ Every morning we are born : every night we die." 

^ In his Essay on Christianity, Shelley writes : " This, and no other, 
is justice : — to consider, under all the circumstances of a particular 
case, how the greatest quantity and purest quality of happiness will 
ensue from any action ; [this] is to be just, and there is no other jus- 
tice. The distinction between justice and mercy was first imagined 
in the courts of tyranny. Mankind receive every relaxation of their 
tyranny as a circumstance of grace or favour." 



INTRODUCTION Jxi 

If sleep can so serve him, how, he asks himself, shall not 
death also serve him, only more greatly? For death, it 
seems, must gather into itself all the meanings and bene- 
dictions of sleep. Shelley touches these ideas with a more 
delicate and lingering sympathy than does any other. We 
find their rising and falling music in Queen Mah, the 
opening chorus in Hellas, Mutability, To Night, Adonais, 
Stanzas written in Dejection, and in these lettered words 
concerning the English burying-place at Rome : " To see 
the sun shining on its bright grass, fresh, when we first 
visited it, with the autumnal dews, and hear the whispering 
of the wind among the leaves of the trees which have over- 
grown the tomb of Cestius, and the soil which is stirring 
in the sun-warm earth, and to mark the tombs, mostly of 
women and young people, who were buried there, one might, 
if one were to die, desire the sleep they seem to sleep. Such 
is the human mind, and so it peoples with its wishes vacancy 
and oblivion." The figures under which Shelley broods upon 
the thoughts of sleep and death are among the gentlest and 
truest in the whole range of his shining imagery. 

A rising and falling music, it was said, — tinged often 
with melancholy. But this melancholy is not to be con- 
founded with pessimism. It is the melancholy of art and 
artists, a principle that has persisted in Teutonic literatures 
especially, from the time of the Saxon sagas to our own day. 
Its roots, perhaps, are three : recognition of the incom- 
pleteness of human life ; inability to express a thought or 
truth with the sheer first power of that thought or truth ; 
and failure to secure more than a very slight share of the 
responsive sympathy of men and women. The poet is baf- 
fled at every turn by these " Thus far's," — even though he 
fight the better for them, — the limitation of life, the limit- 
ation of language, the limitation of love. Shelley felt them 
all acutely. Himself hindered by himself, he looked for- 
ward the more eagerly to the emancipation of mankind; in 
his later days deeply doubtful — save in brief moments — 



Ixii INTRODUCTION 

of the poetic power he yet felt constrained to exert ; hungry 
always for words and looks of understanding ; he has left 
us his testimony touching each of these common sorrows. 
Of the imperfectness of life he wrote : — 

" Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
Stains the white radiance of Eternity, 
Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die 
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! '* 

Of the struggle for expression : — 

"Woe is me! 
The winged words on which my soul would pierce 
Into the height of love's rare Universe 
Are chains of lead around its flight of fire." 

And again : '' The most glorious poetry that has ever been 
communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of 
the original conceptions of the poet." And of the inade- 
quacy of human love : — 

" O Love ! who bewailest 
The frailty of all things here, 
Why choose you the frailest 
For your cradle, your home and your bier ? " 

Shelley's own thought of himself as poet and reformer is 
set forth in the following extract from a letter of December 
11, 1817, to Godwin, concerning Laon and Cythna, or The 
Revolt of Islam : " I felt that it was in many respects a 
genuine picture of my own mind. I felt that the sentiments 
were true, not assumed. And in this have I long believed 
that my power consists — in sympathy, and that part of 
the imagination which relates to sympathy and contempla- 
tion. I am formed, if for anything not in common with the 
herd of mankind, to apprehend minute and remote dis- 
tinctions of feeling, whether relative to external nature or 
the living beings which surround us, and to communicate 
the conceptions which result from considering either the 
moral or the material universe as a whole. Of course I 



INTEODUCTION Ixiii 

believe these faculties, which perhaps comprehend all that 
is sublime in man, to exist very imperfectly in my own 
mind. ... I cannot but be conscious, in much of what 
I write, of an absence of that tranquillity which is the 
attribute and accompaniment of power. ... If I live, or 
if I see any trust in coming years, doubt not that I shall do 
something, whatever it may be, which a serious and earnest 
estimate of my powers will suggest to me, and which will 
be in every respect accommodated to their utmost limits." 
Godwin need not have doubted, for Shelley was not born 
to pass away until he had uttered his masterpiece, — both 
a revelation and a prophecy. Alastor, too, Julian and 
Maddalo, and Adonais, have peculiar value as presenting 
self-delineations of the poet's mind, while in the exquisite 
song of the Fourth Spirit in the Prometheus we get 
something of the instinct and joy of the creative faculty that 
upbore him in those great moments for which he paid in 
the pain and sorrow of gray intervals : — 

" On a poet's lips I slept 
Dreaming like a love-adept 
In the sound his breathing" kept ; 
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, 
But feeds on the aerial kisses 
Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. 
He will watch from dawn to gloom 
The lake-reflected sun illume 
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, 
Nor heed nor see what things they be ; 
But from these create he can 
Forms more real than living man, 
Nurslings of immortality." 

It remains to speak of Shelley's distinctive style, which 
is, of course, one always in point of word-lore, musical 
keenness, vivified sensibility, acceleration, yet it is separable 
into the lyric manner, the dramatic, the satiric, and the 
polemic. In the lyric Shelley is most surely himself, strik- 
ing through to the secret of his feeling with quick penetra- 



Ixiv INTRODUCTION 

tion, and singing out his emotion exultantly, as in The 
Cloud; or mournfully, as in Stanzas written in Dejec- 
tion ; or both, as in Epipsychidion ; yet in all with an 
astonishing anticipativeness. It is a singing at its happiest 
like the shrill delight of his own skylark, or the careless 
rapture of Browning's thrush, bird-like in both its trilling 
echoes and its swift-flung ritornelles ; in its quiet caressing 
of a single note, as " daedal " or " multitudinous,'^ and in 
the flooding harmonies of its finale. And here it should be 
said that Shelley's endings are among his greatest poetic 
victories over the clogs of expression, whether in the lyric- 
built drama, Prometheus, with which he could not rest 
content until he had added a fourth act of hope and glad- 
ness; or in the magnificently sustained paean of Eternity 
with which Adonais breaks off its music ; or in the lin- 
gering promise-refrains of the Ode to the West Wind and 
the apostrophes to Jane. Yet this is not true of all of his 
work, some of which, in its sheer lyric abandon, is over- 
careless of the oracle that " truth in art is the unity of 
a thing with itself." In the sonnet form, particularly, Shelley 
is less successful, possibly because his repugnance to even 
a literary law that did not immediately commend itself to his 
art sense may have disturbed his pen's ease and power. 
Certainly, he was careless here of the canons, and seems to 
have had scant appreciation of the self-justifying genius of 
this difficult bat finely subtle form. Even so, one cannot but 
be grateful that Shelley needed no salvation from the vice 
of fastidiousness. It is possible to fail in art, as Browning 
writes, " only to succeed in highest art." 

Something of the same unease in technique appears in 
the dramas, Hellas, Prometheus, and The Cenci, of which 
only the last-named is, in the traditional sense, a con- 
tribution to drama proper. I have used of the Prometheus 
the term " lyric-built," for Shelley's utterance is always 
essentially lyrical, and so indeed is his point of view. By 
this is meant that he is chiefly interested in reproducing 



IN TE OD UCTION Ix V 

his own emotions in song, — emotions touching past deaths 
and persecutions, present pleasures and sorrows, and ideal 
aspirations toward a World-Cause he too often felt as silent 
and remote. He wrote — in its highest sense — personal 
poetry. His characteristic work is never horizontal : when 
exultant it shoots upward ; when dejected it plunges down- 
ward. It has no merely craftsmanlike propriety. Of the 
craft of the dramatist, indeed, he knew little either by ex- 
perience or by reflection, though his critical vision showed 
him the meaning of the dramatic idea so plainly that his 
statement of it in the preface to The Cenci is among the 
best we have. " The highest moral purpose aimed at in the 
highest species of the drama,'' he writes, " is the teaching 
the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, 
the knowledge of itself ; in proportion to the possession of 
which knowledge every human being is wise, just, sincere, 
tolerant, and kind." And again : '^ Ina dramatic composition 
the imagery and the passion should interpenetrate one 
another, the former being reserved for the full development 
and illustration of the latter. Imagination is as the immor- 
tal God which should assume flesh for the redemption of 
mortal passion. It is true that the most remote and the 
most familiar imagery may alike be fit for dramatic purposes 
when employed in the illustration of strong feeling, which 
raises what is low, and levels to the apprehension that which 
is lofty, casting over all the shadow of its own greatness." 
The Cenci itself, though an actable play by virtue of its 
many sharply striking and challenging antitheses between 
the incarnated spirits of good and evil, its fidelity to tragic 
" pity and terror," and its general conformity to the prime 
structural conditions of drama, is yet rather modern than 
critically orthodox in its literary tendencies. The last act, it 
is true, equals in nobility of diction the nobility of its passion ; 
emphasizes the art value of reserve ; is finely selective ; and 
not once, it seems, falls into the tiresome mire of Common- 
place, a success only partially achieved in the acts preceding. 



Ixvi INTBODUCTION 

In these, powerful as they are, Shelley strangely strikes a 
few notes of undeniable flatness, his novitiate in drama, per- 
haps, in the less inspirational moments, intimidating him. 
The play as a whole tends, like Hellas and the Prome- 
theus, toward closet drama. Though The Cenci is more 
immediately forceful than Browning's plays in general, yet 
the Prometheus is even farther away from the stage and 
stagecraft than Hardy's Dynasts, one of the most extreme 
instances in modern English drama of the closet play. In 
any case, the direction of the dramatic spirit of to-day is 
toward mind-enactment. We are beginning to suspect play- 
house plausibility, and to feel that personal Forests of Arden 
are better for us than any staged presentation can possibly 
be. The normal man, no doubt, even in a cultured commun- 
ity, will find in a carefully staged performance value for 
both his conscience and his fancy ; yet, as the progress of 
the race is steadily away from the objective to the subjective 
(precisely as Shakespeare's progress was from the frankly 
concrete figures of the early comedies to Hamlet and The 
Tempest, neither of which plays can achieve on the stage 
a success commensurate with its spiritual power), it is 
natural that closet drama is becoming more and more per- 
sistent, and that we should have come to feel as well as to 
admit that the theatre is only an incident — however import- 
ant — in the development of the drama, and that a play is 
not great first of all because it is actable. Shelley, for his 
part, felt this very keenly. '' With the exception of Fazio,'' ^ 
wrote Peacock, " I do not remember his having been pleased 
with any performance at an English theatre." In his De- 
fence of Poetry he discusses at some length the history of 
the dramatic idea and the weakness of the modern stage. 
His own plays, given their appropriate background, will not 
fail of their social and spiritual appeal. 

Of his satiric and polemic verse but little need be said. 
Though keen and animated, it does not convince, because 
1 By Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868). 



INtRODUCTION Ixvii 

neither Shelley's human experience nor his theory of life 
was quite extensive and catholic enough to enable him easily 
to see humour in folly, or love in hate. When he derides 
we do not feel that he is quite true to himself, and when he 
argues in verse we would rather hear him '' tell." He would 
have produced less of this sort of work had he come more 
fully into the spirit of his follower Browning, as expressed 
in Paracelsus' dying words : — 

" In my own heart love had not been made wise 
To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind, 
To know even hate is but a mask of love's, 
To see a good in evil, and a hope 
In ill-success ; to sympathize, be proud 
Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim 
Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies. 
Their pre j udice and fears and cares and doubts ; 
All with a touch of nobleness, despite 
Their error, upward tending all though weak, 
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun, 
But dream of him, and guess where he may be, 
And do their best to climb and get to him." 

Shelley's theory of evil, admirably hopeful though it is, 
seeks to abolish its reality rather than to impress that reality 
into the service of good. He caught foregleam visions of 
Paracelsus' final truth,^ but visions not long enough or 
intense enough to hearten his thought of life into a steadier 
and saner regard. Swellfoot the Tyrant is not a poem that 
adds to Shelley's fame, and even in the youthful and not 
ineffective Queen Mdb the poet in him is uneasily con- 
strained to precipitate the worser part of the man's human 
ire into footnotes. When he foregoes the ungrateful busi- 
ness of denunciation, and begins to sound the high and pure 
notes of the race and time to be, it is then that both he and 
his readers most surely find their way. 

Shelley stumbled sometimes in his physical gait, yet his 
habitual movement was a quick floating or gliding. It is 
1 See Prometheus, I, 303-305 ; III, iv, 381-383. 



Ixviii INTRODUCTION 

so in his life and his poetry. Where he stumbles and is 
checked, he recovers for a longer adventure. A man of 
penetrative intention and restless imagining, less anxious to 
lead than to love, he reveals himself in spirit- winged words 
as one of the most intimate and powerful among the stimu- 
lators of the soul, the builders of " that great poem," to 
use his own words, " which all poets, like the co-operating 
thoughts of one great mind, have built up since the begin- 
ning of the world." 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The most important Shelley bibliographies are those of 
H. Buxton Forman — An Essay in Bibliography — and 
John P. Anderson — the Bibliography appended to Sharp's 
Life of Shelley, Mention may also be made of Frederick 
S. Ellis's An Alphabetical Table of Contents to Shelley's 
Poetical Works, adapted to the editions of Forman and 
Kossetti ; and of C. D. Locock's An Examination of the 
Shelley MSS, in the Bodleian Library, The Shelley 
Society's Papers and Publications are invaluable. 

Magazine articles on Shelley and his works will be found 
listed in Poole's Index to Periodical Literature and The 
Reader's Gruide to Periodical Literature. The American 
Library Association's An Index to General Literature 
should also be consulted. 

The following list comprises a carefully selected number 
of Lives, Critical Essays, Editions, and Poems concerning 
SheUey. 

LIVES AND RECORDS 

Edward Dowden: The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
Two vols. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 

Same. Abridged. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 

John Addington Symonds: Shelley. Macmillan. 

William Sharp : Shelley, Walter Scott. 

Edward John Trelawny: Records of Shelley, Byron 
and the Author, Pickering & Chatto. 

Thomas Jefferson Hogg : Life of Shelley, 

Thomas Medwin : Life of Shelley. 

W. M. RossETTi : Life of Shelley. Shelley Society. 

Thomas Love Peacock : Memoirs of Percy Bysshe Shel- 
ley, 



Ixx BIBLIOGRAPHY 

H. S. Salt ; Shelley, A Biographical Study, 

Mrs. Julian Marshall: Life and Letters of Mary Woll- 

stonecraft Shelley. Two vols. Bentley. 
Leigh Hunt: Autobiography. 
Alfred Webb : Harriet Shelley and Catherine Nugent. 

The Nation, vol. xlviii. 

CRITICAL ESSAYS 

Robert Browning: An Essay on Shelley. 

Leslie Stephen : Hours in a Library, vol. iii. 

Matthew Arnold: Essays in Criticism. 

David Masson : Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats. 

Edward Dowden : Studies in Literature. 

R. H. HuTTON : Literary Essays. Macmillan. 

George Edward Woodberry : Makers of Literature. 

The Torch. 
Walter Bagehot : Literary Studies. 
Paul Bourget : Etudes et Portraits. 
Andrew Lang : Letters to Dead Authors. 
W. M. RossETTi : Lives of Famous Poets. , 

EDITIONS 

Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley in Verse and Prose. Ed- 
ited by Harry Buxton Forman. Eight vols. Reeves & 
Turner. 

Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited, with a 
Memoir, by Mrs. Shelley. Two vols. Houghton, Mifflin. 

Complete Poetical Works of Shelley, Edited, with Memoir 
and Notes, by George Edward Woodberry. Four vols. 
Houghton, Mifflin. 

Poetical Works of Shelley. Edited, with Memoir and 
Notes, by W. M. Rossetti. Three vols. 

Poems of Shelley. Edited by Edward Dowden. (Globe 
edition) Macmillan. 

Poems of Shelley. Edited by George E. Woodberry. (Cam- 
bridge edition) Houghton, Mifflin. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixxi 

Adonais. Edited by W. M. Rossetti. Clarendon Press. 
Adonais and Alastor. Edited by Charles G. D. Roberts. 

Silver, Burdett. 
Prometheus Unbound, Edited by Vida D. Scudder. Heath. 
Select Poems of Shelley. Edited by W. J. Alexander. Ginn. 
Essays and Letters by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Edited by 

Ernest Rhys. Walter Scott. 
Poems of Shelley. Selected and Arranged by Stopford A. 

Brooke. Macmillan. 
With Shelley in Italy. Selected Poems and Letters. 

Edited by Anna D. McMahan. McClurg. 

POEMS CONCERNING SHELLEY 

Robert Browning: Memorabilia; Pauline (beginning, 

" I ne'er had ventured e'en to hope for this ''). 
Leigh Hunt : Sonnet to Shelley, 
William Watson : To Edward Dowden^ on his Life of 

Shelley ; Shelley's Centenary ; Shelley and Harriet, 
Andrew Lang: San Terenzo ; Lines on the Inaugural 

Meeting of the Shelley Society, 
Edmund Clarence Stedman: Ariel, 
Paul Bourget : Sur un Volume de Shelley, 
D. G. Rossetti : Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
W. M. Rossetti : Shelley's Heart, 
J. B. Tabb : Shelley, A Sonnet, 
George E. Woodberry: Shelley , A Sonnet; Shelley's 

House. 



POEMS OF 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 

STANZAS — APRIL, 1814 

Away ! the moor is dark beneath the moon, 
Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even : 
Away ! the gathering winds will call the darkness 
soon, 
And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights 

of heaven. 

Pause not ! the time is past ! Every voice cries, 

Away! 5 

Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle 

mood: 

Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat 

thy stay : 
Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude. 

Away, away ! to thy sad and silent home ; 

Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth ; 10 

Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and 

come. 

And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth. 

The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around 

thine head, 
The blooms of dewy Spring shall gleam beneath 
thy feet : 
But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that 
binds the dead, 15 

Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile, ere thou 
and peace, may meet. 



2 TO COLERIDGE 

The cloud-shadows of midnight possess their own 
repose, 
For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in 
the deep ; 
Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean 
knows ; 
Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its ap- 
pointed sleep. 20 
Thou in the grave shalt rest — yet, till the phantoms 

flee 
Which that house and heath and garden made dear 
to thee erewhile. 
Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings, 

are not free 
From the music of two voices, and the light of one 
sweet smile. 



TO COLERIDGE 

» MKPY2I AlOISfl nOTMON AHOTMON 

O, there are spirits in the air. 

And genii of the evening breeze. 
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair 
As starbeams among twilight trees : — 
Such lovely ministers to meet 5 

Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet. 

With mountain winds, and babbling springs, 

And moonlight seas, that are the voice 
Of these inexplicable things, 

Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice 10 

When they did answer thee ; but they 
Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away. 



TO WORDSWOETH 3 

And thou hast sought in starry eyes 

Beams that were never meant for thine, 
Another's wealth; — tame sacrifice 15 

To a fond faith ! Still dost thou pine ? 
Still dost thou hope that greeting hands, 
Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands ? 

Ah ! wherefore didst thou build thine hope 

On the false earth's inconstancy? 20 

Did thine own mind afford no scope 
Of love, or moving thoughts to thee ? 
That natural scenes or human smiles 
Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles. 

Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled 25 

Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted ; 
The glory of the moon is dead ; 

Night's ghosts and dreams have now departed : 
Thine own soul still is true to thee. 
But changed to a foul fiend through misery. 30 

This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever 

Beside thee like thy shadow hangs. 
Dream not to chase ; — the mad endeavour 
Would scourge thee to severer pangs. 
Be as thou art. Thy settled fate, 35 

Dark as it is, all change would aggravate. 
1815. 

TO WORDSWORTH 

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know 
That things depart which never may return ; 

Childhood and youth, friendship, and love's first glow, 
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. 



4 A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD 

These common woes I feel. One loss is mine, 5 

Which thou too feeFst, yet I alone deplore : 
Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine 

On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar : 
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood 
Above the blind and battling multitude ; 10 

In honoured poverty thy voice did weave 

Songs consecrate to truth and liberty ; — 
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, 

Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be. 
1815. 

A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD 

LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE 

The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere 
Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray ; 

And pallid evening twines its beaming hair 

In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day. 

Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men, 5 

Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. 

They breathe their spells towards the departing day, 
Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea ; 

Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway. 

Responding to the charm with its own mystery. 10 

The winds are still, or the dry church tower grass 

Knows not their gentle motions as they pass. 

Thou too, aerial Pile, whose pinnacles 

Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, 

Obey'st in silence their sweet solemn spells, 15 

Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, 



LINES 5 

Around whose lessening and invisible height 
Gather among the stars the clouds of night. 

The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres ; 

And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, 20 
Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs. 

Breathed from their wormy beds all living things 
around ; 
And, mingling with the still night and mute sky, 
Its awful hush is felt inaudibly. 

Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild 25 

And terrorless as this serenest night : 
Here could I hope, like some inquiring child 

Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human 
sight 
Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep 
That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. 30 

September, 1815. 

LINES 

The cold earth slept below. 
Above the cold sky shone ; 
And all around. 
With a chilling sound. 
From caves of ice and fields of snow 5 

The breath of night like death did flow 
Beneath the sinking moon. 

The wintry hedge was black. 
The green grass was not seen. 

The birds did rest 10 

On the bare thorn's breast, 



THE SUNSET 

Whose roots, beside the pathway track, 
Had bound their folds o'er many a crack 
Which the frost had made between. 

Thine eyes glowed in the glare 15 

Of the moon's dying light ; 
As a fen-fire's beam 
On a sluggish stream 
Gleams dimly — so the moon shone there, 
And it yellowed the strings of thy raven hair, 
That shook in the wind of night. 21 

The moon made thy lips pale, beloved ; 
The wind made thy bosom chill ; 
The night did shed 

On thy dear head 25 

Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie 
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky 

Might visit thee at will. 
November, 1815. 

THE SUNSET 

There late was One, within whose subtle being. 
As light and wind within some delicate cloud 
That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky, 
Genius and death contended. None may know 
The sweetness of the joy which made his breath 5 
Fail, like the trances of the summer air. 
When, with the Lady of his love, w/ho then 
First knew the unreserve of mingled being. 
He walked along the pathway of a field, 
Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o'er, 10 
But to the west was open to the sky. 



THE SUNSET 7 

There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold 
Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points 
Of the far level grass and nodding flowers. 
And the old dandelion's hoary beard, 15 

And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay 
On the brown massy woods — and in the east 
The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose 
Between the black trunks of the crowded trees. 
While the faint stars were gathering overhead. 20 
" Is it not strange, Isabel," said the youth, 
" I never saw the sun ? We will walk here 
To-morrow ; thou shalt look on it with me." 

That night the youth and lady mingled lay 

In love and sleep — but when the morning came 25 

The lady found her lover dead and cold. 

Let none believe that God in mercy gave 

That stroke. The lady died not, nor grew wild, 

But year by year lived on — in truth I think 

Her gentleness and patience and sad smiles, 30 

And that she did not die, but lived to tend 

Her aged father, were a kind of madness, 

If madness 't is to be unlike the world. 

For but to see her were to read the tale 

Woven by some subtlest bard, to make hard hearts 

Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief ; — 36 

Her eyelashes were worn away with tears, 

Her lips and cheeks were like things dead — so pale; 

Her hands were thin, and through their wandering 

veins 
And weak articulations might be seen 40 

Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self 
Which one vexed ghost inhabits night and day, 
Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee ! 



8 HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY 

" Inheritor of more than earth can give, 
Passionless calm, and silence unreproved, 45 

Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep ! but rest. 
And are the uncomplaining things they seem. 
Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love ; 
Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were — Peace ! " 
This was the only moan she ever made. 50 

1816. 

HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY 

The awful shadow of some unseen Power 
Floats though unseen among us ; visiting 
This various world with as inconstant wing 
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower. 
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain 
shower, 5 

It visits with inconstant glance 
Each human heart and countenance ; 
Like hues and harmonies of evening. 
Like clouds in starlight widely spread, 
Like memory of music fled, 10 

Like aught that for its grace may be 
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. 

Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate 

With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon 
Of human thought or form, where art thou gone ? 15 
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state. 
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ? 
Ask why the sunlight not for ever 
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river ; 
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown; 
Why fear and dream and death and birth 21 

Cast on the daylight of this earth 



HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY 9 

Such gloom ; why man has such a scope 
For love and hate, despondency and hope. 

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever 25 

To sage or poet these responses given ; 
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, 
Remain the records of their vain endeavour : 
Frail spells, whose uttered charm might not avail to 
sever, 
From all we hear and all we see, 30 

Doubt, chance, and mutability. 
Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven, 
Or music by the night wind sent 
Through strings of some still instrument. 
Or moonlight on a midnight stream, 35 

Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. 

Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds, depart 
And come, for some uncertain moments lent. 
Man were immortal and omnipotent, 
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, 40 

Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his 
heart. 
Thou messenger of sympathies 
That wax and wane in lovers' eyes ; 
Thou, that to human thought art nourishment. 
Like darkness to a dying flame ; 45 

Depart not as thy shadow came ! 
Depart not, lest the grave should be, 
Like life and fear, a dark reality ! 

While yet a boy, I sought for ghosts, and sped 

Through many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin, 
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing 51 



10 HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY 

Hopes of high talk with the departed dead ; 
I called on poisonous names with which our youth is 
fed. 
I was not heard, I saw them not ; 
When, musing deeply on the lot 55 

Of life, at that sweet time when winds are woo- 
ing 
All vital things that wake to bring 
News of birds and blossoming. 
Sudden thy shadow fell on me : 
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy ! 60 

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers 
To thee and thine : have I not kept the vow ? 
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now 
I call the phantoms of a thousand hours 
Each from his voiceless grave : they have in visioned 
bowers 65 

Of studious zeal or love's delight 
Outwatched with me the envious night : 
They know that never joy illumed my brow, 
Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free 
This world from its dark slavery, 70 

That thou, O awful Loveliness, 
Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express ! 

The day becomes more solemn and serene 
When noon is past : there is a harmony 
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, 75 

Which through the summer is not heard or seen, 
As if it could not be, as if it had not been ! 
Thus let thy power, which like the truth 
Of nature on my passive youth 
Descended, to my onward life supply 80 



MONT BLANC 11 

Its calm, to one who worships thee, 
And every form containing thee, 
Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind 
To fear himself, and love all humankind. 
1816. 

MONT BLANC 

LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI 



The everlasting universe of things 

Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, 

Now dark — now glittering — now reflecting gloom — 

Now lending splendour, where from secret springs 

The source of human thought its tribute brings 5 

Of waters, — with a sound but half its own. 

Such as a feeble brook will oft assume 

In the wild woods, among the mountains lone. 

Where waterfalls around it leap for ever. 

Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river 10 

Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves. 

II 

Thus thou, Kavine of Arve — dark, deep Ravine — 
Thou many-coloured, many-voiced vale. 
Over whose pines and crags and caverns sail 
Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams ; awful scene, 15 
Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down 
From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne, 
Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame 
Of lightning through the tempest ; — thou dost lie. 
Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, 20 
Children of elder time, in whose devotion 



12 MONT BLANC 

The chainless winds still come and ever came 

To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging 

To hear — an old and solemn harmony : 

Thine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep 25 

Of the ethereal waterfall, whose veil 

Robes some unsculptured image ; the strange sleep 

Which, when the voices of the desert fail. 

Wraps all in its own deep eternity ; 

Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion 30 

A loud, lone sound, no other sound can tame ; 

Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, 

Thou art the path of that unresting sound, 

Dizzy Ravine ! and when I gaze on thee, 

I seem as in a trance sublime and strange 35 

To muse on my own separate fantasy. 

My own, my human mind, which passively 

Now renders and receives fast influencings, 

Holding an unremitting interchange 

With the clear universe of things around ; 40 

One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings 

Now float above thy darkness, and now rest 

Where that or thou art no unbidden guest. 

In the still cave of the witch Poesy, 

Seeking among the shadows that pass by, 45 

Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee, 

Some phantom, some faint image ; till the breast 

From which they fled recalls them, thou art there ! 

Ill 

Some say that gleams of a remoter world 

Visit the soul in sleep, — that death is slumber, 50 

And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber 

Of those who wake and live. I look on high ; 

Has some unknown omnipotence unfurled 



MONT BLANC 13 

The vale of life and death ? Or do I lie 

In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep 55 

Spread far around and inaccessibly 

Its circles ? for the very spirit fails, 

Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep 

That vanishes among the viewless gales ! 

Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, 60 

Mont Blanc appears, — still, snowy, and serene — 

Its subject mountains their unearthly forms 

Pile around it, ice and rock ; broad vales between 

Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, 

Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread 65 

And wind among the accumulated steeps ; 

A desert peopled by the storms alone. 

Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, 

And the wolf tracks her there — how hideously 

Its shapes are heaped around ! rude, bare, and high, 70 

Ghastly, and scarred, and riven. — Is this the scene 

Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young 

Ruin ? Were these their toys ? or did a sea 

Of fire envelope once this silent snow ? 

None can reply — all seems eternal now. 75 

The wilderness has a mysterious tongue 

Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, 

So solemn, so serene, that man may be, 

But for such faith, with nature reconciled; 

Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal 80 

Large codes of fraud and woe ; not understood 

By all, but which the wise, and great, and good 

Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel. 

IV 

The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams. 
Ocean, and all the living things that dwell 85 



14 MONT BLANC 

Within the daedal earth ; lightning and rain, 

Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, 

The torpor of the year when feeble dreams 

Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep 

Holds every future leaf and flower, — the bound 90 

With which from that detested trance they leap ; 

The works and ways of man, their death and birth, 

And that of him, and all that his may be ; 

All things that move and breathe with toil and sound 

Are born and die, revolve, subside, and swell. 95 

Power dwells apart in its tranquillity. 

Remote, serene, and inaccessible : 

And this^ the naked countenance of earth. 

On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains, 

Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep, 100 

Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far 

fountains, 
Slow rolling on ; there, many a precipice 
Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power 
Have piled — dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, 
A city of death, distinct with many a tower 105 

And wall impregnable of beaming ice. 
Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin 
Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky 
Rolls its perpetual stream ; vast pines are strewing 
Its destined path, or in the mangled soil 110 

Branchless and shattered stand ; the rocks, drawn 

down 
From yon remotest waste, have overthrown 
The limits of the dead and living world. 
Never to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place 
Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil ; 115 
Their food and their retreat for ever gone, 
So much of life and joy is lost. The race 



MONT BLANC 15 

Of man flies far in dread ; his work and dwelling 
Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, 
And their place is not known. Below, vast caves 120 
Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, 
Which, from those secret chasms in tumult welling, 
Meet in the Vale, and one majestic River, 
The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever 
KoUs its loud waters to the ocean waves, 125 

Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air. 



Mont Blanc yet gleams on high : — the power is there. 
The still and solemn power, of many sights 
And many sounds, and much of life and death. 
In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, 130 

In the lone glare of day, the snows descend 
Upon that mountain ; none beholds them there. 
Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun. 
Or the star-beams dart through them : — Winds con- 
tend 
Silently there, and heap the snow, with breath 135 
Rapid and strong, but silently ! Its home 
The voiceless lightning in these solitudes 
Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods 
Over the snow. The secret strength of things 
Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome 140 
Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee ! 
And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, 
If to the human mind's imaginings 
Silence and solitude were vacancy ? 

June 23, 1816. 



16 TO CONSTANTIA. SINGING 



TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING 

Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die, 

Perchance were death indeed! — Constantia, turn! 

In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie, 

Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which 
burn 

Between thy lips, are laid to sleep ; 5 

Within thy breath and on thy hair, like odour it is 

yet. 

And from thy touch like fire doth leap. 

Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet, 
Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget ! 

A breathless awe, like the swift change 10 

Unseen but felt in youthful slumbers, 
Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange. 

Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers. 
The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven 

By the enchantment of thy strain, 15 

And on my shoulders wings are woven, 

To follow its sublime career. 
Beyond the mighty moons that wane 

Upon the verge of nature's utmost sphere. 

Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disap- 
pear. 

Her voice, is hovering o'er my soul — it lingers 21 
O'ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings. 

The blood and life within those snowy fingers 
Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings. 

My brain is wild, my breath comes quick — 25 

The blood is listening in my frame, 

And thronging shadows, fast and thick, 



SONNET — 0« YMANDIAS 17 

Fall on my overflowing eyes ; 
My heart is quivering like a flame ; 

As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies, 30 

I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies. 

I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee. 

Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song 

Flows on, and fills all things with melody. 

Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong, 35 

On which, like one in trance upborne. 
Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep. 

Rejoicing like a cloud of morn ; 

Now 'tis the breath of summer night. 

Which, when the starry waters sleep 40 

Round western isles with incense-blossoms bright, 
Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight, 
1817. 

SONNET — OZYMANDIAS 

I MET a traveller from an antique land 

Who said : " Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand. 

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown. 
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 5 

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed ; 
And on the pedestal these words appear : 

' My name is Ozymandias, king of kings : 10 

Look on my work-s, ye Mighty, and despair ! ' 

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, 

The lone and level sands stretch far away." 
1817. 



18 LINES TO A CRITIC 



LINES 

That time is dead for ever, child, 
Drowned, frozen, dead for ever ! 

We look on the past. 

And stare aghast 
At the spectres wailing, pale, and ghast, 5 

Of hopes which thou and I beguiled 

To death on life's dark river. 

The stream we gazed on then, rolled by ; 
Its waves are unreturning ; 

But we yet stand 10 

In a lone land. 
Like tombs to mark the memory 
Of hopes and fears which fade and fly 

In the light of life's dim morning. 
November 5, 1817. 

LINES TO A CRITIC 

Honey from silkworms who can gather, 

Or silk from the yellow bee ? 
The grass may grow in winter weather 

As soon as hate in me. 

Hate men who cant, and men who pray, 5 

And men who rail like thee; 
An equal passion to repay, — 

They are not coy like me. 

Or seek some slave of power and gold, 

To be thy dear heart's mate ; 10 



ON A FADED VIOLET 19 

Thy love will move that bigot cold, 
Sooner than me thy hate. 

A passion like the one I prove 

Cannot divided be ; 
I hate thy want of truth and love — 15 

How should I then hate thee? 

December, 1817. 



PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES 

Listen, listen, Mary mine, 
To the whisper of the Apennine ; 
It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar, 
Or like the sea on a northern shore, 
Heard in its raging ebb and flow 5 

By the captives pent in the cave below. 
The Apennine in the light of day 
Is a mighty mountain dim and gray. 
Which between the earth and sky doth lay ; 
But when night comes, a chaos dread 10 

On the dim starlight then is spread. 
And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm. 
May 4, 1818. 

ON A FADED VIOLET 

The odour from the flower is gone 

Which like thy kisses breathed on me ; 

The colour from the flower is flown 
Which glowed of thee and only thee ! 

A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form, 5 

It lies on my abandoned breast, 



20 WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 

And mocks the heart which yet is warm, 
With cold and silent rest. 

I weep, — my tears revive it not ! 

I sigh, — it breathes no more on me ; 10 

Its mute and uncomplaining lot 

Is such as mine should be. 

1818. 



LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN 

HILLS 

Many a green isle needs must be 

In the deep wide sea of misery, 

Or the mariner, worn and wan, 

Never thus could voyage on 

Day and night, and night and day, 5 

Drifting on his dreary way. 

With the solid darkness black 

Closing round his vessel's track ; 

Whilst above, the sunless sky. 

Big with clouds, hangs heavily ; 10 

And behind, the tempest fleet 

Hurries on with lightning feet. 

Riving sail, and cord, and plank. 

Till the ship has almost drank 

Death from the o'er-brimming deep, 15 

And sinks down, down, like that sleep 

When the dreamer seems to be 

Weltering through eternity ; 

And the dim low line before 

Of a dark and distant shore 20 

Still recedes, as ever still 

Longing with divided will, 



WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 21 

But no power to seek or shun, 

He is ever drifted on 

O'er the unreposing wave 25 

To the haven of the grave. 

What if there no friends will greet ; 

What if there no heart will meet 

His with love's impatient beat ; 

Wander wheresoe'er he may, 30 

Can he dream before that day 

To find refuge from distress 

In friendship's smile, in love's caress ? 

Then 't will wreak him little woe 

Whether such there be or no : 35 

Senseless is the breast, and cold, 

Which relenting love would fold ; 

Bloodless are the veins and chill 

Which the pulse of pain did fill ; 

Every little living nerve 40 

That from bitter words did swerve 

Round the tortured lips and brow, 

Are like sapless leaflets now 

Frozen upon December's bough. 

On the beach of a northern sea 45 

Which tempests shake eternally, 

As once the wretch there lay to sleep. 

Lies a solitary heap, 

One white skull and seven dry bones, 

On the margin of the stones, 50 

Where a few gray rushes stand. 

Boundaries of the sea and land: • 

Nor is heard one voice of wail 

But the seamews, as they sail 

O'er the billows of the gale ; 55 



22 WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 

Or the whirlwind up and down 

Howling, like a slaughtered town, 

When a king in glory rides 

Through the pomp of fratricides : 

Those unburied bones around 60 

There is many a mournful sound ; 

There is no lament for him, 

Like a sunless vapour, dim, 

Who once clothed with life and thought 

What now moves nor murmurs not. 65 

Ay, many flowering islands lie 

In the waters of wide Agony : 

To such a one this morn was led 

My bark, by soft winds piloted. 

'Mid the mountains Euganean, 70 

I stood listening to the paean 

With which the legioned rooks did hail 

The sun's uprise majestical ; 

Gathering round with wings all hoar, 

Through the dewy mist they soar 75 

Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven 

Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, 

Flecked with fire and azure, lie 

In the unfathomable sky. 

So their plumes of purple grain, 80 

Starred with drops of golden rain, 

Gleam above the sunlight woods. 

As in silent multitudes 

On the morning's fitful gale 

Through the broken mist they sail, 85 

And the vapours cloven and gleaming 

Follow down the dark steep streaming, 

Till all is bright, and clear, and still, 

Kound the solitary hill. 



WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 23 

Beneath is spread like a green sea 90 

The waveless plain of Lombardy, 

Bounded by the vaporous air, 

Islanded by cities fair. 

Underneath day's azure eyes, 

Ocean's nursling, Venice lies, — 95 

A peopled labyrinth of walls, 

Amphitrite's destined halls. 

Which her hoary sire now paves 

With his blue and beaming waves. 

Lo! the sun upsprings behind, 100 

Broad, red, radiant, half -reclined 

On the level quivering line 

Of the waters crystalline ; 

And before that chasm of light. 

As within a furnace bright, 105 

Column, tower, and dome, and spire. 

Shine like obelisks of fire, 

Pointing with inconstant motion 

From the altar of dark ocean 

To the sapphire-tinted skies; 110 

As the flames of sacrifice 

From the marble shrines did rise. 

As to pierce the dome of gold 

Where Apollo spoke of old. 

Sun-girt City ! thou hast been 115 

Ocean's child, and then his queen; 

Now is come a darker day, 

And thou soon must be his prey. 

If the power that raised thee here 

Hallow so thy watery bier. 120 

A less drear ruin then than now. 

With thy conquest-branded brow 



24 WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 

Stooping to the slave of slaves 

From thy throne, among the waves 

Wilt thou be, when the seamew 125 

Flies, as once before it flew, 

O'er thine isles depopulate. 

And all is in its ancient state. 

Save where many a palace-gate 

With green sea-flowers overgrown 130 

Like a rock of ocean's own. 

Topples o'er the abandoned sea 

As the tides change sullenly. 

The fisher on his watery way. 

Wandering at the close of day, 135 

Will spread his sail and seize his oar. 

Till he pass the gloomy shore. 

Lest the dead should, from their sleep 

Bursting o'er the starlight deep, 

Lead a rapid masque of death 140 

O'er the waters of his path. 

Those who alone thy towers behold 

Quivering through aerial gold, 

As I now behold them here. 

Would imagine not they were 145 

Sepulchres, where human forms. 

Like pollution-nourished worms. 

To the corpse of greatness cling. 

Murdered and now mouldering : 

But if Freedom should awake 150 

In her omnipotence, and shake 

From the Celtic Anarch's hold 

All the keys of dungeons cold. 

Where a hundred cities lie 

Chained like thee, ingloriously, 156 



WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 25 

Thou and all thy sister band 

Might adorn this sunny land, 

Twining memories of old time 

With new virtues more sublime ; 

If not, perish thou and they ; 160 

Clouds which stain truth's rising day 

By her sun consumed away, 

Earth can spare ye ; while like flowers, 

In the waste of years and hours, 

From your dust new nations spring 165 

With more kindly blossoming. 

Perish ! let there only be 

Floating o'er thy hearthless sea, 

As the garment of thy sky 

Clothes the world immortally, 170 

One remembrance, more sublime 

Than the tattered pall of Time, 

Which scarce hides thy visage wan: 

That a tempest-cleaving swan 

Of the songs of Albion, 175 

Driven from his ancestral streams 

By the might of evil dreams. 

Found a nest in thee ; and ocean 

Welcomed him with such emotion 

That its joy grew his, and sprung 180 

From his lips like music flung 

O'er a mighty thunder-fit. 

Chastening terror : what though yet 

Poesy's unfailing river, 

Which through Albion winds for ever, 185 

Lashing with melodious wave 

Many a sacred poet's grave. 

Mourn, its latest nursling fled ! 



26 WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 

What though thou with all thy dead 

Scarce can for this fame repay 190 

Aught thine own, — oh, rather say, 

Though thy sins and slaveries foul 

Overcloud a sunlike soul ! 

As the ghost of Homer clings 

Round Scamander's wasting springs 195 

As divinest Shakespeare's might 

Fills Avon and the world with light, 

Like omniscient power, which he 

Imaged 'mid mortality; 

As the love from Petrarch's urn 200 

Yet amid yon hills doth burn, 

A quenchless lamp, by which the heart 

Sees things unearthly ; so thou art, 

Mighty spirit : so shall be 

The city that did refuge thee. 206 

Lo, the sun floats up the sky. 

Like thought-winged Liberty, 

Till the universal light 

Seems to level plain and height ; 

From the sea a mist has spread, 210 

And the beams of morn lie dead 

On the towers of Venice now, 

Like its glory long ago. 

By the skirts of that gray cloud 

Many-domed Padua proud 215 

Stands, a peopled solitude, 

'Mid the harvest-shining plain. 

Where the peasant heaps his grain 

Li the garner of his foe, 

And the milk-white oxen slow 220 

With the purple vintage strain. 



WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 27 

Heaped upon the creaking wain, 

That the brutal Celt may swill 

Drunken sleep with savage will ; 

And the sickle to the sword 225 

Lies unchanged, though many a lord, 

Like a weed whose shade is poison, 

Overgrows this region's foison. 

Sheaves of whom are ripe to come 

To destruction's harvest-home : 230 

Men must reap the things they sow, 

Force from force must ever flow. 

Or worse ; but 'tis a bitter woe 

That love or reason cannot change 

The despot's rage, the slave's revenge. 235 

Padua, thou within whose walls 

Those mute guests at festivals. 

Son and Mother, Death and Sin, 

Played at dice for Ezzelin, 

Till Death cried, " I win, I win ! " 240 

And Sin cursed to lose the wager. 

But Death promised, to assuage her, 

That he would petition for 

Her to be made Vice-Emperor, 

When the destined years were o'er, 245 

Over all between the Po 

And the eastern Alpine snow. 

Under the mighty Austrian. 

Sin smiled so as Sin only can, 

And, since that time, ay, long before, 250 

Both have ruled from shore to shore. 

That incestuous pair, who follow 

Tyrants as the sun the swallow, 

As Repentance follows Crime, 

And as changes follow Time. 255 



28 WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 

In thine halls the lamp of learning, 

Padua, now no more is burning ; 

Like a meteor, whose wild way 

Is lost over the grave of day, 

It gleams betrayed and to betray : 260 

Once remotest nations came 

To adore that sacred flame. 

When it lit not many a hearth 

On this cold and gloomy earth ; 

Now new fires from antique light 265 

Spring beneath the wide world's might ; 

But their spark lies dead in thee. 

Trampled out by tyranny. 

As the Norway woodman quells. 

In the depth of piny dells, 270 

One light flame among the brakes. 

While the boundless forest shakes. 

And its mighty trunks are torn 

By the fire thus lowly born — 

The spark beneath his feet is dead, 275 

He starts to see the flames it fed 

Howling through the darkened sky 

With myriad tongues victoriously. 

And sinks down in fear : so thou, 

O tyranny ! beholdest now 280 

Light around thee, and thou hearest 

The loud flames ascend, and fearest : 

Grovel on the earth ; ay, hide 

In the dust thy purple pride ! 

Noon descends around me now : 285 

'T is the noon of autumn's glow, 
When a soft and purple mist 
Like a vaporous amethyst, 



WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 29 

Or an air-dissolved star 

Mingling light and fragrance, far 290 

From the curved horizon's bound, 

To the point of heaven's profound, 

Fills the overflowing sky ; 

And the plains that silent lie 

Underneath. The leaves unsodden 295 

Where the infant frost has trodden 

With his morning- winged feet, 

Whose bright print is gleaming yet ; 

And the red and golden vines, 

Piercing with their trellised lines 300 

The rough, dark-skirted wilderness ; 

The dun and bladed grass no less. 

Pointing from this hoary tower 

In the windless air ; the flower 

Glimmering at my feet ; the line 305 

Of the olive-sandalled Apennine 

In the south dimly islanded ; 

And the Alps, whose snows are spread 

High between the clouds and sun ; 

And of living things each one ; 310 

And my spirit, which so long 

Darkened this swift stream of song. 

Interpenetrated lie 

By the glory of the sky : 

Be it love, light, harmony, 315 

Odour, or the soul of all 

Which from heaven like dew doth fall. 

Or the mind which feeds this verse 

Peopling the lone universe. 

Noon descends, and after noon 320 

Autumn's evening meets me soon. 



30 WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 

Leading the infantine moon, 

And that one star, which to her 

Almost seems to minister 

Half the crimson light she brings 325 

From the sunset's radiant springs : 

And the soft dreams of the morn 

(Which like winged winds had borne, 

To that silent isle, which lies 

'Mid remembered agonies, 330 

The frail bark of this lone being), 

Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, 

And its ancient pilot. Pain, 

Sits beside the helm again. 

Other flowering isles must be 335 

In the sea of life and agony : 

Other spirits float and flee 

O'er that gulf : even now, perhaps, 

On some rock the wild wave wraps, 

With folded wings they waiting sit 340 

For my bark, to pilot it 

To some calm and blooming cove, 

Where for me, and those I love. 

May a windless bower be built, 

Far from passion, pain, and guilt, 345 

In a dell 'mid lawny hills. 

Which the wild sea-murmur fills. 

And soft sunshine, and the sound 

Of old forests echoing round, 

And the light and smell divine 350 

Of all flowers that breathe and shine. 

We may live so happy there 

That the spirits of the air. 

Envying us, may even entice 



STANZAS 31 

To our healing paradise 355 

The polluting multitude : 

But their rage would be subdued 

By that clime divine and calm. 

And the winds whose wings rain balm 

On the uplifted soul, and leaves 360 

Under which the bright sea heaves ; 

While each breathless interval 

In their whisperings musical 

The inspired soul supplies 

With its own deep melodies, 365 

And the love which heals all strife, 

Circling, like the breath of life. 

All things in that sweet abode 

With its own mild brotherhood. 

They, not it, would change ; and soon 370 

Every sprite beneath the moon 

Would repent its envy vain. 

And the earth grow young again. 

October, 1818. 



STANZAS 

WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES 

The sun is warm, the sky is clear, 

The waves are dancing fast and bright, 
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear 

The purple noon's transparent might ; 

The breath of the moist earth is light, 
Around its unexpanded buds ; 

Like many a voice of one delight. 
The winds, the birds, the ocean-floods. 
The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's. 



32 STANZAS 

I see the Deep's un trampled floor 10 

With green and purple seaweeds strewn ; 
I see the waves upon the shore, 

Lake light dissolved in star-showers, thrown ; 

I sit upon the sands alone. 
The lightning of the noontide ocean 15 

Is flashing round me, and a tone 
Arises from its measured motion. 
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion. 

Alas ! I have nor hope nor health, 

Nor peace within nor calm around, 20 

Nor that content surpassing wealth 

The sage in meditation found. 

And walked with inward glory crowned, — 
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. 

Others I see whom these surround ; 25 

Smiling they live, and call life pleasure ; 
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. 

Yet now despair itself is mild, 

Even as the winds and waters are ; 

I could lie down like a tired child, 30 

And weep away the life of care 
Which I have borne, and yet must bear, 

Till death like sleep might steal on me, 
And I might feel in the warm air 

My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 35 

Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. 

Some might lament that I were cold, 
As I when this sweet day is gone, 

Which my lost hearty too soon grown old. 

Insults with this untimely moan ; 40 



LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR 33 

They might lament — for I am one 
Whom men love not — and yet regret, 

Unlike this day, which, when the sun 
Shall on its stainless glory set, 44 

Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. 

December, 1818. 



LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR 

I ARISE from dreams of thee 

In the first sweet sleep of night, 

When the winds are breathing low. 

And the stars are shining bright. 

I arise from dreams of thee, 5 

And a spirit in my feet 

Has led me — who knows how ? — 

To thy chamber-window, sweet ! 

The wandering airs they faint 

On the dark, the silent stream ; 10 

The champak odours fail 

Like sweet thoughts in a dream ; 

The nightingale's complaint, 

It dies upon her heart. 

As I must die on thin 15 

O beloved as thou art ! 

lift me from the grass ! 

1 die, I faint, I fail ! 

Let thy love in kisses rain 

On my lips and eyelids pale. 20 

My cheek is cold and white, alas 1 

My heart beats loud and fast, 



34 SONG — TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND 

O ! press it close to thine again, 
Where it will break at last. 

1819. 

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY 

The fountains mingle with the river, 

And the rivers with the ocean ; 
The winds of heaven mix for ever 

With a sweet emotion ; 
Nothing in the world is single ; 6 

All things by a law divine 
In one another's being mingle : 

Why not I with thine ? 

See the mountains kiss high heaven, 

And the waves clasp one another ; 10 

No sister flower would be forgiven 

If it disdained its brother ; 
And the sunlight clasps the earth, 

And the moonbeams kiss the sea : 
What are all these kissings worth, 15 

If thou kiss not me ? 
1819. 



SONG — TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND 

Men of England, wherefore plough 
For the lords who lay ye low ? 
Wherefore weave with toil and care 
The rich robes your tyrants wear? 

Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save. 
From the cradle to the grave, 



SONG — TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND 35 

Those ungrateful drones who would 

Drain your sweat — nay, drink your blood? 

Wherefore, Bees of England, forge 

Many a weapon, chain, and scourge, 10 

That these stingless drones may spoil 

The forced produce of your toil? 

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm. 

Shelter, food, love's gentle balm ? 

Or what is it ye buy so dear 15 

With your pain and with your fear? 

The seed ye sow, another reaps ; 

The wealth ye find, another keeps ; 

The robes ye weave, another wears ; 

The arms ye forge, another bears. 20 

Sow seed, — but let no tyrant reap ; 
Find wealth, — let no impostor heap ; 
Weave robes, — let not the idle wear ; 
Forge arms, — in your defence to bear. 

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells ; 25 
In halls ye deck, another dwells. 
Why shake the chains ye wrought ? Ye see 
The steel ye tempered glance on ye. 

With plough and spade, and hoe and loom, 
Trace your grave, and build your tomb, 30 
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair 
England be your sepulchre ! 
1819. 



36 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 

ENGLAND IN 1819 

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, - — 

Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow 
Through public scorn, — mud from a muddy spring ; 

Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, 
But leech-like to their fainting country cling, 5 

Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow ; 
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field ; 

An army, which liberticide and prey 
Make as a two-edged sword to all who wield ; 

Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay ; 
Religion Christless, Godless, — a book sealed ; 11 

A Senate, — time's worst statute unrepealed, — 

Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may 

Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day. 
1819. 

ODE TO THE WEST WIND 



O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing. 

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red. 
Pestilence-stricken multitudes ; O thou, 5 

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, 
Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow 



ODE TO THE WEST WIND 37 

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 10 

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
With living hues and odours plain and hill : 

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere ; 
Destroyer and preserver ; hear, O hear ! 

II 

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commo- 
tion, 15 
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed. 
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and 
ocean, 

Angels of rain and lightning ; there are spread 

On the blue surface of thine airy surge, 

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20 

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim 

verge 
Of the horizon to the zenith's height 
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 

Of the dying year, to which this closing night 

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 25 

Vaulted with all thy congregated might 

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 

Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst ; O hear ! 

Ill 

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30 

Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams. 



38 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, 
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 

All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers 35 

So sweet the sense faints picturing them ! Thou 
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 40 

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, 
And tremble and despoil themselves ; O hear ! 

IV 

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear ; 

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee ; 

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 45 

The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
Than thou, O uncontrollable ! if even 
I were as in my boyhood, and could be 

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 

As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed 50 

Scarce seemed a vision ; I would ne'er have striven 

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 

! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! 

1 fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed ! 

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed 55 
One too like thee : tameless, and swift, and proud. 



OBE TO THE WEST WIND 39 



Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : 
What if my leaves are falling like its own ! 
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, 60 

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, 
My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe 
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth ; 
And, by the incantation of this verse, 65 

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth 
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind ! 
Be through my lips to unawakened earth 



The trumpet of a prophecy ! O Wind, 

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind ? 



70 



1819. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

A LYRICAL DRAMA, IN FOUR ACTS 
Audisne haec, AmphiaraB, sub terrain abdite ? 

PREFACE 

The Greek tragic writers, in selecting as their subject any 
portion of their national history or mythology, employed in their 
treatment of it a certain arbitrary discretion. They by no means 
conceived themselves bound to adhere to the common interpreta- 
tion, or to imitate in story, as in title, their rivals and prede- 
cessors. Such a system would have amounted to a resignation 
of those claims to preference over their competitors which in- 
cited the composition. The Agamemnonian story was exhibited 
on the Athenian theatre with as many variations as dramas. 

I have presumed to employ a similar license. The Prometheus 
Unbound of iEschylus supposed the reconciliation of Jupiter 
with his victim as the price of the disclosure of the danger 
threatened to his empire by the consummation of his marriage 
with Thetis. Thetis, according to this view of the subject, was 
given in marriage to Peleus, and Prometheus, by the permission 
of Jupiter, delivered from his captivity by Hercules. Had I 
framed my story on this model, I should have done no more 
than have attempted to restore the lost drama of iEschylus ; an 
ambition which, if my preference to this mode of treating the 
subject had incited me to cherish, the recollection of the high 
comparison such an attempt would challenge might well abate. 
But, in truth, I was averse from a catastrophe so feeble as that 
of reconciling the Champion with the Oppressor of mankind. 
The moral interest of the fable, which is so powerfully sustained 
by the sufferings and endurance of Prometheus, would be annihi- 
lated if we could conceive of him as unsaying his high language 
and quailing before his successful and perfidious adversary. 
The only imaginary being resembling in any degree Prometheus, 
is Satan : and Prometheus is, in my judgement, a more poetical 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 41 

character than Satan, because, in addition to courage, and ma- 
jesty, and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent force, he is 
susceptible of being described as exempt from the taints of 
ambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for personal aggrandize- 
ment, which, in the Hero of Paradise Lost, interfere with the 
interest. The character of Satan engenders in the mind a per- 
nicious casuistry which leads us to weigh his faults with his 
wrongs, and to excuse the former because the latter exceed all 
measure. In the minds of those who consider that magnificent 
fiction with a religious feeling, it engenders something worse. 
But Prometheus is, as it were, the type of the highest perfec- 
tion of moral and intellectual nature, impelled by the purest 
and the truest motives to the best and noblest ends. 

This poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of 
the Baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades, and thickets 
of odoriferous blossoming trees, which are extended in ever- 
winding labyrinths upon its immense platforms and dizzy arches 
suspended in the air. The bright blue sky of Rome, and the 
effect of the vigorous awakening of spring in that divinest cli- 
mate, and the new life with which it drenches the spirits even to 
intoxication, were the inspiration of this drama. 

The imagery which I have employed will be found, in many 
instances, to have been drawn from the operations of the human 
mind, or from those external actions by which they are ex- 
pressed. This is unusual in modern poetry, although Dante and 
Shakespeare are full of instances of the same kind : Dante in- 
deed more than any other poet, and with greater success. But 
the Greek poets, as writers to whom no resource of awakening 
the sympathy of their contemporaries was unknown, were in the 
habitual use of this power ; and it is the study of their works 
(since a higher merit would probably be denied me) to which 
I am willing that my readers should impute this singularity. 

One word is due in candour to the degree in which the study 
of contemporary writings may have tinged my composition ; for 
such has been a topic of censure with regard to poems far more 
popular, and indeed more deservedly popular, than mine. It is 
impossible that any one who inhabits the same age with such 
writers as those who stand in the foremost ranks of our own, 
can conscientiously assure himself that his language and tone of 
thought may not have been modified by the study of the produc- 
tions of those extraordinary intellects. It is true, that, not the 



42 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

spirit of their genius, but the forms in which it has manifested 
itself, are due less to the peculiarities of their own minds than 
to the peculiarity of the moral and intellectual condition of the 
minds among which they have been produced. Thus a number 
of writers possess the form, whilst they want the spirit of those 
whom, it is alleged, they imitate ; because the former is the 
endowment of the age in which they live, and the latter must 
be the uncommunicated lightning of their own mind. 

The peculiar style of intense and comprehensive imagery 
which distinguishes the modern literature of England, has not 
been, as a general power, the product of the imitation of any 
particular writer. The mass of capabilities remains at every 
period materially the same ; the circumstances which awaken it 
to action perpetually change. If England were divided into forty 
republics, each equal in population and extent to Athens, there 
is no reason to suppose but that, under institutions not more per- 
fect than those of Athens, each would produce philosophers and 
poets equal to those who (if we except Shakespeare) have never 
been surpassed. We owe the great writers of the golden age of 
our literature to that fervid awakening of the public mind which 
shook to dust the oldest and most oppressive form of the Chris- 
tian religion. We owe Milton to the progress and development 
of the same spirit: the sacred Milton was, let it ever be remem- 
bered, a republican, and a bold inquirer into morals and religion. 
The great writers of our own age are, we have reason to sup- 
pose, the companions and forerunners of some unimagined 
change in our social condition, or the opinions which cement it. 
The cloud of mind is discharging its collected lightning, and the 
equilibrium between institutions and opinions is now restoring, 
or is about to be restored. 

As to imitation, poetry is a mimetic art. It creates, but it 
creates by combination and representation. Poetical abstractions 
are beautiful and new, not because the portions of which they are 
composed had no previous existence in the mind of man or in 
nature, but because the whole produced by their combination 
has some intelligible and beautiful analogy with those sources of 
emotion and thought, and with the contemporary condition of 
them: one great poet is a masterpiece of nature which another 
not only ought to study but must study. He might as wisely 
and as easily determine that his mind should no longer be the 
mirror of all that is lovely in the visible universe, as exclude from 



PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 43 

his contemplation the beautiful which exists in the writings of 
a great contemporary. The pretence of doing it would be a 
presumption in any but the greatest ; the effect, even in him, 
would be strained, unnatural, and ineffectual. A poet is the 
combined product of such internal powers as modify the nature 
of others ; and of such external influences as excite and sustain 
these powers: he is not one, but both. Every man's mind is, in 
this respect, modified by all the objects of nature and art; by 
every word and every suggestion which he ever admitted to act 
upon his consciousness; it is the mirror upon which all forms are 
reflected, and in which they compose one form. Poets, not other- 
wise than philosophers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, are, in 
one sense the creators, and, in another, the creations, of their 
age. From this subjection the loftiest do not escape. There 
is a similarity between Homer and Hesiod, between ^schylus 
and Euripides, between Virgil and Horace, between Dante and 
Petrarch, between Shakespeare and Fletcher, between Dryden 
and Pope; each has a generic resemblance under which their 
specific distinctions are arranged. If this similarity be the result 
of imitation, I am willing to confess that I have imitated. 

Let this opportunity be conceded to me of acknowledging that 
I have, what a Scotch philosopher characteristically terms, " a 
passion for reforming the world " : what passion incited him to 
write and publish his book, he omits to explain. For my part, 
I had rather be damned with Plato and Lord Bacon than go to 
heaven with Paley and Malthus. But it is a mistake to suppose 
that I dedicate my poetical compositions solely to the direct 
enforcement of reform, or that I consider them in any degree 
as containing a reasoned system on the theory of human life. 
Didactic poetry is my abhorrence ; nothing can be equally well 
expressed in prose that is not tedious and supererogatory in verse. 
My purpose has hitherto been simply to familiarize the highly 
refined imagination of the more select classes of poetical readers 
with beautiful idealisms of moral excellence ; aware that until 
the mind can love, and admire, and trust, and hope, and endure, 
reasoned principles of moral conduct are seeds cast upon the 
highway of life, which the unconscious passenger tramples into 
dust, although they would bear the harvest of his happiness. 
Should I live to accomplish what I purpose, that is, produce a 
systematical history of what appear to me to be the genuine 
elements of human society, let not the advocates of injustice and 



44 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

superstition flatter themselves that I should take -^schylus rather 
than Plato as my model. 

The having spoken of myself with unafPected freedom will 
need little apology with the candid ; and let the uncandid con- 
sider that they injure me less than their own hearts and minds 
Tjy misrepresentation. Whatever talents a person may possess 
to amuse and instruct others, be they ever so inconsiderable, he 
is yet bound to exert them : if his attempt be ineffectual, let the 
punishment of an unaccomplished purpose have been sufficient ; 
let none trouble themselves to heap the dust of oblivion upon his 
efforts ; the pile they raise will betray his grave, which might 
otherwise have been unknown. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS 



Prometheus 

Demogorgon 

Jupiter 

The Earth 

Ocean 

Apollo 

Mercury 

Hercules 



Asia, > 

Panthea, >- Oceanides 
lONE, ) 

The Phantasm of Jupiter 
The Spirit of the Earth 
The Spirit of the Moon 
Spirits of the Hours 
Spirits. Echoes. Fauns 
Furies 



ACT I 

Scene, A Ravine of Icy Rocks in the Indian Caucasus. 
Prometheus is discovered hound to the Precipice. 
Panthea and Ione are seated at his feet. Time, Night, 
During the Scene, Morning slowly breaks, 

Prometheus 

Monarch of Gods and Daemons, and all Spirits 

But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds 

Which thou and I alone of living things 

Behold with sleepless eyes ! regard this Earth 

Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou 5 

Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise, 

And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts, 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 45 

With fear and self-contempt and barren hope : 

Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate, 

Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn, 10 

O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge. 

Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours^ 

And moments aye divided by keen pangs 

Till they seemed years, torture and solitude, 

Scorn and despair, — these are mine empire, 15 

More glorious far than that which thou surveyest 

From thine unenvied throne, O mighty God ! 

Almighty, had I deigned to share the shame 

Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here 

Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain, 20 

Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured ; without herb, 

Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life. 

Ah me ! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever ! 

No change, no pause, no hope ! Yet I endure. 

I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt ? 25 

I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun, 

Has it not seen ? The Sea, in storm or calm, 

Heaven's ever-changing Shadow, spread below. 

Have its deaf waves not heard my agony ? 

Ah me ! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever ! 30 

The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears 
Of their moon-freezing crystals ; the bright chains 
Eat with their burning cold into my bones. 
Heaven's winged hound, polluting from thy lips 
His beak in poison not his own, tears up 35 

My heart ; and shapeless sights come wandering by. 
The ghastly people of the realm of dream. 
Mocking me : and the Earthquake-fiends are charged 
To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds 



46 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

When the rocks split and close again behind ; 40 

While from their loud abysses howling throng 

The genii of the storm, urging the rage 

Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail. 

And yet to me welcome is day and night, 

Whether one breaks the hoar frost of the morn, 45 

Or, starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs 

The leaden-coloured east ; for then they lead 

The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom — 

As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim — 

Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood 50 

From these pale feet, which then might trample thee 

If they disdained not such a prostrate slave. 

Disdain ! Ah no ! I pity thee. What ruin 

Will hunt thee undefended through the wide Heaven ! 

How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror, 55 

Gape like a hell within ! I speak in grief. 

Not exultation, for I hate no more. 

As then ere misery made me wise. The curse 

Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains, 

Whose many-voiced Echoes, through the mist 60 

Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell ! 

Ye icy Springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost, 

Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept 

Shuddering through India ! Thou serenest Air, 64 

Through which the Sun walks burning without beams ! 

And the swift Whirlwinds, who on poised wings 

Hung mute and moveless o'er yon hushed abyss, 

As thunder, louder than your own, made rock 

The orb^d world ! If then my words had power. 

Though I am changed so that aught evil wish 70 

Is dead within ; although no memory be 

Of what is hate, let them not lose it now ! 

What was that curse ? for ye all heard me speak. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 47 

FiEST Voice : from the Mountains 

Thrice three hundred thousand years 

O'er the Earthquake's couch we stood : 75 

Oft, as men convulsed with fears, 
We trembled in our multitude. 

Seco:n^d Voice ; from the Springs 

Thunderbolts had parched our water, 
We had been stained with bitter blood, 

And had run mute, 'mid shrieks of slaughter, 80 
Through a city and a solitude. 

Third Voice : from the Air 

I had clothed, since Earth uprose, 
Its wastes in colours not their own ; 

And oft had my serene repose 

Been cloven by many a rending groan. 85 

Fourth Voice : fi^om the Whirlwinds 

We had soared beneath these mountains 

Unresting ages ; nor had thunder. 
Nor yon volcano's flaming fountains, 

Nor any power above or under 

Ever made us mute with^ wonder, 90 

First Voice 

But never bowed our snowy crest 
As at the voice of thine unrest. 

Second Voice 

Never such a sound before 

To the Indian waves we bore. 

A pilot asleep on the howling sea J 95 

Leaped up from the deck in agony, \ 



48 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

And heard, and cried, " Ah, woe is me ! " 
And died as mad as the wild waves be. 

Third Voice 

By such dread words from Earth to Heaven 
My still realm was never riven : 100 

When its wound was closed, there stood 
Darkness o'er the day like blood. 

Fourth Voice 

And we shrank back : for dreams of ruin 

To frozen caves our flight pursuing 

Made us keep silence — thus — and thus — 105 

Though silence is a hell to us. 

The Earth 

The tongueless Caverns of the craggy hills 
Cried, " Misery! " then; the hollow Heaven replied, 
'^ Misery ! " and the Ocean's purple waves, 
Climbing the land, howled to the lashing winds, 110 
And the pale nations heard it, *' Misery ! " 

Prometheus 

I hear a sound of voices : not the voice 

Which I gave forth. Mother, thy sons and thou 

Scorn him without whose all-enduring will 

Beneath the fierce omnipotence of Jove, 115 

Both they and thou had vanished, like thin mist 

Unrolled on the morning wind. Know ye not me, 

The Titan ? he who made his agony 

The barrier to your else all-conquering Foe ? 

O rock-embosomed lawns, and snow-fed streams, 120 

Now seen athwart frore vapours, deep below. 

Through whose overshadowing woods I wandered once 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 49 

With Asia, drinking life from her loved eyes ; 

Why scorns the spirit which informs ye, now 

To commune with me? me alone, who checked, 125 

As one who checks a fiend-drawn charioteer, 

The falsehood and the force of him who reigns 

Supreme, and with the groans of pining slaves 

Fills your dim glens and liquid wildernesses. 

Why answer ye not, still. Brethren ? 130 

The Earth 

They dare not. 
Prometheus 

Who dares ? for I would hear that curse again. 

Ha ! what an awful whisper rises up ! 

'T is scarce like sound : it tingles through the frame 

As lightning tingles, hovering ere it strike. 

Speak, Spirit ! From thine inorganic voice, 135 

I only know that thou art moving near 

And love. How cursed I him ? 

The Earth 

How canst thou hear 
Who knowest not the language of the dead ? 

Prometheus 
Thou art a living spirit : speak as they ! 

The Earth 

I dare not speak like life, lest Heaven's fell King 140 
Should hear, and link me to some wheel of pain 
More torturing than the one whereon I roll. 
Subtle thou art and good ; and though the Gods 
Hear not this voice, yet thou art more than God, 
Being wise and kind: earnestly hearken now ! 145 



50 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Prometheus 

Obscurely through my brain, like shadows dim. 
Sweep awful thoughts, rapid and thick. I feel 
Faint, like one mingled in entwining love ; 
Yet 't is not pleasure. 

The Earth 

No, thou canst not hear : 
Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known 150 

Only to those who die. 

Prometheus 

And what art thou, 
O melancholy Voice ? 

The Earth 

I am the Earth, 
Thy mother ; she within whose stony veins. 
To the last fibre of the loftiest tree 
Whose thin leaves trembled in the frozen air, 155 

Joy ran, as blood within a living frame, 
When thou didst from her bosom, like a cloud 
Of glory, arise, a spirit of keen joy ! 
And at thy voice her pining sons uplifted 
Their prostrate brows from the polluting dust, 160 
And our almighty Tyrant with fierce dread 
Grew pale, until his thunder chained thee here. 
Then, see those million worlds which burn and roll 
Around us : their inhabitants beheld 
My sphered light wane in wide Heaven ; the sea 165 
Was lifted by strange tempest, and new fire 
From earthquake-rifted mountains of bright snow 
Shook its portentous hair beneath Heaven's frown ; 
Lightning and Inundation vexed the plains ; 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 51 

Blue thistles bloomed in cities ; foodless toads 170 

Within voluptuous chambers panting crawled : 

When Plague had fallen on man, and beast, and worm. 

And Famine ; and black blight on herb and tree ; 

And in the corn, and vines, and meadow-grass, 

Teemed ineradicable poisonous weeds 175 

Draining their growth, for my wan breast was dry 

With grief ; and the thin air, my breath, was stained 

With the contagion of a mother's hate 

Breathed on her child's destroyer ; ay, I heard 

Thy curse, the which, if thou rememberest not, 180 

Yet my innumerable seas and streams. 

Mountains, and caves, and winds, and yon wide air, 

And the inarticulate people of the dead. 

Preserve, a treasured spell. We meditate 

In secret joy and hope those dreadful words, 185 

But dare not speak them. 

Prometheus 

Venerable mother ! 
All else who live and suffer take from thee 
Some comfort ; flowers, and fruits, and happy sounds, 
And love, though fleeting ; these may not be mine. 
But mine own words, I pray, deny me not ! 190 

The Earth 

They shall be told. Ere Babylon was dust, 

The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child. 

Met his own image walking in the garden. 

That apparition, sole of men, he saw. 

For know, there are two worlds of life and death : 195 

One, that which thou beholdest ; but the other 

Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit 

The shadows of all forms that think and live, 



62 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Till death unite them and they part no more ; 
Dreams and the light imaginings of men, 200 

And all that faith creates or love desires, 
Terrible, strange, sublime, and beauteous shapes. 
There thou art, and dost hang, a writhing shade, 
Mid whirlwind-peopled mountains ; all the Gods 
Are there, and all the powers of nameless worlds, 205 
Vast, sceptred phantoms ; heroes, men, and beasts ; 
And Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom ; 
And he, the supreme Tyrant, on his throne 
Of burning gold. Son, one of these shall utter 
The curse which all remember. Call at will 210 

Thine own ghost, or the ghost of Jupiter, 
Hades or Typhon, or what mightier Gods 
From all-prolific Evil, since thy ruin 
Have sprung, and trampled on my prostrate sons. 
Ask, and they must reply : so the revenge 215 

Of the Supreme may sweep through vacant shades, 
As rainy wind through the abandoned gate 
Of a fallen palace. 

Prometheus 

Mother, let not aught 
Of that which may be evil, pass again 
My lips, or those of aught resembling me. 220 

Phantasm of Jupiter, arise, appear ! 

lONE 

My wings are folded o'er mine ears : 
My wings are crossed o'er mine eyes : 

Yet through their silver shade appears, 

And through their lulling plumes arise, 225 

A Shape, a throng of sounds. 
May it be no ill to thee 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 53 

O thou of many wounds ! 
Near whom, for our sweet sister's sake, 
Ever thus we watch and wake. 230 

Panthea 

The sound is of whirlwind underground, 

Earthquake, and fire, and mountains cloven ; 
The shape is awful like the sound. 

Clothed in dark purple, star-inwoven. 
A sceptre of pale gold, 235 

To stay steps proud, o'er the slow cloud, 
His veined hand doth hold. 
Cruel he looks, but calm and strong, 
Like one who does, not suffers wrong. 

Phantasm of Jupiter 

Why have the secret powers of this strange world 

Driven me, a frail and empty phantom, hither 241 

On direst storms ? What unaccustomed sounds 

Are hovering on my lips, unlike the voice 

With which our pallid race hold ghastly talk 

In darkness ? And, proud sufferer, who art thou ? 245 

Prometheus 

Tremendous Image ! as thou art must be 
He whom thou shadowest forth. I am his foe. 
The Titan. Speak the words which I would hear, 
Although no thought inform thine empty voice ! 

The Earth 

Listen ! and though your echoes must be mute, 250 
Gray mountains, and old woods, and haunted springs, 
Prophetic caves, and isle-surrounding streams. 
Rejoice to hear what yet ye cannot speak ! 



64 PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Phantasm 

A spirit seizes me and speaks within : 

It tears me as fire tears a thunder-cloud. 255 

Panthea 

See how he lifts his mighty looks ! the Heaven 
Darkens above ! 

lONE 

He speaks ! O shelter me ! 

Prometheus 

I see the curse on gestures proud and cold, 

And looks of firm defiance, and calm hate, 

And such despair as mocks itself with smiles, 260 

Written as on a scroll : yet speak ! O speak ! 

Phantasm 

Fiend, I defy thee ! with a calm, fixed mind, 
All that thou canst inflict I bid thee do ; 

Foul Tyrant both of Gods and Humankind, 

One only being shalt thou not subdue. 265 

Rain then thy plagues upon me here. 

Ghastly disease, and frenzying fear ; 

And let alternate frost and fire 

Eat into me, and be thine ire 
Lightning, and cutting hail, and legioned forms 270 
Of furies, driving by upon the wounding storms ! 

Ay, do thy worst ! Thou art omnipotent. 

O'er all things but thyself I gave thee power. 
And my own will. Be thy swift mischiefs sent 

To blast mankind, from yon ethereal tower. 275 
Let thy malignant spirit move 



FEOMETHEUS UNBOUND 55 

In darkness over those I love : 

On me and mine I imprecate 

The utmost torture of thy hate ; 
And thus devote to sleepless agony, 280 

This undeclining head while thou must reign on high. 

But thou, who art the God and Lord : O thou, 
Who fillest with thy soul this world of woe, 

To whom all things of Earth and Heaven do bow 
In fear and worship : all-prevailing foe, — 285 

I curse thee ! Let a sufferer's curse 

Clasp thee, his torturer, like remorse ; 

Till thine Infinity shall be 

A robe of envenomed agony ; 
And thine Omnipotence a crown of pain, 290 

To cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain ! 

Heap on thy soul, by virtue of this Curse, 

111 deeds ; then be thou damned, beholding good ; 
Both infinite as is the universe. 

And thou, and thy self-torturing solitude ! 295 
An awful image of calm power 
Though now thou sittest, let the hour 
Come, when thou must appear to be 
That which thou art internally. 
And after many a false and fruitless crime 300 

Scorn track thy lagging fall through boundless space 
and time ! 

Prometheus 
Were these my words, O Parent? 

The Earth 

They were thine* 



56 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Prometheus 

It doth repent me : words are quick and vain ; 

Grief for a while is blind, and so was mine* 

I wish no living thing to suffer pain. 305 

The Earth 

Misery, Oh misery to me. 

That Jove at length should vanquish thee ! 

Wail, howl aloud. Land and Sea, 

The Earth's rent heart shall answer ye. 

Howl, Spirits of the living and the dead, 310 

Your refuge, your defence, lies fallen and vanquished ! 

First Echo 
Lies fallen and vanquished ! 

Second Echo 
Fallen and vanquished ! 

lONE 

Fear not : 't is but some passing spasm : 

The Titan is unvanquished still. 315 

But see, where through the azure chasm 
Of yon forked and snowy hill, 

Trampling the slant winds on high 

. With golden-sandalled feet, that glow 

Under plumes of purple dye, 320 

Like rose-ensanguined ivory, 
A Shape comes now. 

Stretching on high from his right hand 

A serpent-cinctured wand. 

Panthea 
'T is Jove's world -wandering herald. Mercury, 325 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 57 

lONE 

And who are those with hydra tresses 
And iron wings that climb the wind, 

Whom the frowning God represses, 
Like vapours steaming up behind, 

Clanging loud, an endless crowd — 330 

Panthea 

These are Jove's tempest-walking hounds. 
Whom he gluts with groans and blood. 
When charioted on sulphurous cloud 

He bursts Heaven's bounds, 

lONE 

Are they now led from the thin dead, 335 

On new pangs to be fed ? 

Panthea 
The Titan looks as ever, firm, not proud. 

First Fury 
Ha ! I scent life ! 

Second Fury 
Let me but look into his eyes ! 

Third Fury 

The hope of torturing him smells like a heap 340 

Of corpses, to a death-bird after battle. 

First Fury 

Darest thou delay, O Herald ! Take cheer, Hounds 
Of Hell : What if the Son of Maia soon 



68 PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Should make us food and sport — who can pleiase long 
The Omnipotent? 

Mercury 

Back to your towers of iron, 345 
And gnash, beside the streams of fire and wail, 
Your foodless teeth ! Geryon, arise ! and Gorgon, 
Chimaera, and thou Sphinx, subtlest of fiends, 
Who ministered to Thebes Heaven's poisoned wine. 
Unnatural love, and more unnatural hate : 350 

These shall perform your task. 

First Fury 

Oh, mercy ! mercy ! 
We die with our desire : drive us not back ! 

Mercury 

Crouch then in silence ! 

Awful Sufferer ! 
To thee unwilling, most unwillingly 
I come, by the Great Father's will driven down, 355 
To execute a doom of new revenge. 
Alas I I pity thee, and hate myself 
That I can do no more : aye from thy sight 
Returning, for a season. Heaven seems Hell, 
So thy worn form pursues me night and day, 360 

Smiling reproach. Wise art thou, firm and good. 
But vainly wouldst stand forth alone in strife 
Against the Omnipotent ; as yon clear lamps 
That measure and divide the weary years 
From which there is no refuge, long have taught, 365 
And long must teach. Even now thy Torturer arms 
With the strange might of unimagined pains 
The powers who scheme slow agonies in Hell, 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 59 

And my commission is to lead them here, 

Or what more subtle, foul, or savage fiends 370 

People the abyss, and leave them to their task. 

Be it not so ! There is a secret known 

To thee, and to none else of living things, 

Which may transfer the sceptre of wide Heaven, 

The fear of which perplexes the Supreme : 375 

Clothe it in words, and bid it clasp his throne 

In intercession ; bend thy soul in prayer. 

And, like a suppliant in some gorgeous fane. 

Let the will kneel within thy haughty heart : 

For benefits and meek submission tame 380 

The fiercest and the mightiest. 

Prometheus 

Evil minds 
Change good to their own nature. I gave all 
He has ; and in return he chains me here 
Years, ages, night and day : whether the Sun 
Split my parched skin, or in the moony night 385 

The crystal-winged snow cling round my hair : 
Whilst my beloved race is trampled down 
By his thought-executing ministers. 
Such is the Tyrant's recompense. 'T is just : 
He who is evil can receive no good ; 390 

And for a world bestowed, or a friend lost. 
He can feel hate, fear, shame ; not gratitude : 
He but requites me for his own misdeed. 
Kindness to such is keen reproach, which breaks 
With bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge. 395 

Submission, thou dost know I cannot try : 
For what submission but that fatal word. 
The death-seal of mankind's captivity. 
Like the Sicilian's hair-suspended sword. 



60 PEOMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Which trembles o'er his crown, would he accept, 400 

Or could I yield ? Which yet I will not yield. 

Let others flatter Crime, where it sits throned 

In brief Omnipotence : secure are they : 

For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down 

Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs, 405 

Too much avenged by those who err. I wait, 

Enduring thus, the retributive hour 

Which since we spake is even nearer now. 

But hark, the hell-hounds clamour. Fear delay ! 

Behold! Heaven lowers under thy Father's frown. 410 

Mercury 

Oh, that we might be spared: I to inflict, 
And thou to suffer ! Once more answer me : 
Thou knowest not the period of Jove's power? 

Prometheus 
I know but this, that it must come. 

Mercury 

Alas! 
Thou canst not count thy years to come of pain? 415 

Prometheus 

They last while Jove must reign ; nor more, nor less 
Do I desire or fear. 

Mercury 

Yet pause, and plunge 
Into eternity, where recorded time. 
Even all that we imagine, age on age, 
Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind 420 

Flags wearily in its unending flight. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 61 

Till it sink, dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless ; 
Perchance it has not numbered the slow years 
Which thou must spend in torture, unreprieved? 424 

Prometheus 
Perchance no thought can count them, yet they pass. 

Mercury 

If thou mightst dwell among the Gods the while 
Lapped in voluptuous joy ? 

Prometheus 

I would not quit 
This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains. 

Mercury 
Alas ! I wonder at, yet pity thee. 

Prometheus 

Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven, 430 

Not me, within whose mind sits peace serene, 
As light in the sun, throned. How vain is talk ! 
Call up the fiends ! 

lOKE 

O sister, look ! White fire 
Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar ; 
How fearfully God's thunder howls behind ! 435 

Mercury 

I must obey his words and thine : alas ! 
Most heavily remorse hangs at my heart! 

Panthea 

See where the child of Heaven, with winged feet, 
Buns down the slanted sunlight of the dawn. 



62 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

lONE 

Dear sister, close thy plumes over thine eyes, 440 

Lest thou behold and die. They come, they come, 
Blackening the birth of day with countless wings. 
And hollow underneath, like death. 



First Fury 



Prometheus ! 



Second Fury 
Immortal Titan ! 

Third Fury 
Champion of Heaven's slaves ! 

Prometheus 

He whom some dreadful voice invokes is here ; 445 
Prometheus, the chained Titan. Horrible forms, 
What and who are ye ? Never yet there came 
Phantasms so foul through monster-teeming Hell 
From the all-miscreative brain of Jove ; 
Whilst I behold such execrable shapes, 450 

Methinks I grow like what I contemplate, 
And laugh and stare in loathsome sympathy. 

First Fury 

We are the ministers of pain, and fear. 

And disappointment, and mistrust, and hate. 

And clinging crime ; and, as lean dogs pursue 455 

Through wood and lake some struck and sobbing 

fawn, 
We track all things that weep, and bleed, and 

live. 
When the great King betrays them to our will. 



PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 63 

Prometheus 

many fearful natures in one name, 

1 know ye ; and these lakes and echoes know 460 
The darkness and the clangour of your wings. 

But why more hideous than your loathed selves 
Gather ye up in legions from the deep ? 

Second Fury 
We knew not that : Sisters, rejoice, rejoice ! 

Prometheus 
Can aught exult in its deformity ? 465 

Second Fury 

The beauty of delight makes lovers glad, 

Gazing on one another : so are we. 

As from the rose which the pale priestess kneels 

To gather for her festal crown of flowers 

The aerial crimson falls, flushing her cheek, 470 

So from our victim's destined agony 

The shade which is our form invests us round ; 

Else we are shapeless as our mother Night. 

Prometheus 

I laugh your power, and his who sent you here, 

To lowest scorn. Pour forth the cup of pain ! 475 

First Fury 

Thou thinkest we will rend thee bone from bone, 
And nerve from nerve, working like fire within ? 

Prometheus 

Pain is my element, as hate is thine. 
Ye rend me now : I care not. 



64 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Second Fury 

Dost imagine 
We will but laugh into thy lidless eyes ? 480 

Prometheus 

I weigh not what ye do, but what ye suffer, 
Being evil. Cruel was the power which called 
You, or aught else so wretched, into light. 

Third Fury 

Thou think*st we will live through thee, one by one, 
Like animal life, and, though we can obscure not 485 
The soul which burns within, that we will dwell 
Beside it, like a vain loud multitude 
Vexing the self -content of wisest men : 
That we will be dread thought beneath thy brain, 
And foul desire round thine astonished heart, 490 

And blood within thy labyrinthine veins 
Crawling like agony ? 

Prometheus 

Why, ye are thus now ; 
Yet am I king over myself, and rule 
The torturing and conflicting throngs within. 
As Jove rules you when Hell grows mutinous. 495 

Chorus of Furies 

From the ends of the earth, from the ends of the 

earth. 
Where the night has its grave and the morning its 

birth. 

Come, come, come! 
O ye who shake hills with the scream of your mirth. 
When cities sink howling in ruin ; and ye 500 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 65 

Who with wingless footsteps trample the sea, 
And close upon Shipwreck and Famine's track, 
Sit chattering with joy on the f oodless wreck ; 
Come, come, come ! 
Leave the bed, low, cold, and red, 505 

Strewed beneath a nation dead ; 
Leave the hatred, as in ashes 

Fire is left for future burning : 
It will burst in bloodier flashes 

When ye stir it, soon returning : > 510 

Leave the self -con tempt implanted 
In young spirits, sense-enchanted. 

Misery's yet unkindled fuel : 
Leave Hell's secrets half unchanted 

To the maniac dreamer ; cruel 515 

More than ye can be with hate, 
Is he with fear. 

Come, come, come ! 
We are steaming up from Hell's wide gate 
And we burthen the blasts of the atmosphere, 
But vainly we toil till ye come here. 521 

lONE 

Sister, I hear the thunder of new wings. 

Panthea 

These solid mountains quiver with the sound. 

Even as the tremulous air : their shadows make 524 

The space within my plumes more black than night. 

First Fury 

Your call was as a winged car, 
Driven on whirlwinds fast and far ; 
It rapt us from red gulfs of war. 



66 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

, Second Fury 

From wide cities, famine-wasted ; 

Third Fury 
Groans half heard, and blood untasted ; 530 

Fourth Fury 

Kingly conclaves, stern and cold, 

Where blood with gold is bought and sold ; 

Fifth Fury 

From the furnace, white and hot. 
In which — 

A Fury 

Speak not : whisper not : 
I know all that ye would tell, 535 

But to speak might break the spell 
Which must bend the Invincible, 

The stern of thought ; 
He yet defies the deepest power of Hell. 

Fury 
Tear the veil ! 

Another Fury 
It is torn. 

Chorus 

The pale stars of the morn 540 * 
Shine on a misery, dire to be borne. 
Dost thou faint, mighty Titan? We laugh thee to 

scorn. 
Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken'dst 

for man ? 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 67 

Then was kindled within him a thirst which out- 
ran 
Those perishing waters ; a thirst of fierce fever, 545 
Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever. 
One came forth of gentle worth. 
Smiling on the sanguine earth ; 
His words outlived him, like swift poison 

Withering up truth, peace, and pity. 550 
Look ! where round the wide horizon 

Many a million-peopled city 
Vomits smoke in the bright air ; 
Mark that outcry of despair ! 
'T is his mild and gentle ghost 555 

Wailing for the faith he kindled : 
Look again ! the flames almost 

To a glow-worm's lamp have dwindled : 
The survivors round the embers 

Gather in dread. 560 

Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers ; 
And the future is dark, and the present is spread 
Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head. 

Semichorus I 

Drops of bloody agony flow 565 

From his white and quivering brow. 
Grant a little respite now : 
See ! a disenchanted nation 
Springs like day from desolation ; 
To Truth its state is dedicate, 570 

And Freedom leads it forth, her mate ; 
A legioned band of linked brothers, 
Whom Love calls children — 



68 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Semichorus II 

'T is another's : 
See how kindred murder kin ! 
'T is the vintage-time for death and sin. 575 
Blood, like new wine, bubbles within : 
Till Despair smothers 
The struggling world, which slaves and tyrants win. 

\_All the Furies vanish^ except one. 

lONE 

Hark, sister ! what a low yet dreadful groan 
Quite unsuppressed is tearing up the heart 580 

Of the good Titan, as storms tear the deep, 
And beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves. 
Darest thou observe how the fiends torture him ? 

Panthea 
Alas ! I looked forth twice, but will no more. 

lONE 

What didst thou see ? 

Panthea 

A wof ul sight : a youth 585 
With patient looks, nailed to a crucifix. 

lONE 

What next? 

Panthea 

The heaven around, the earth below, 
Was peopled with thick shapes of human death, 
All horrible, and wrought by human hands ; 
And some appeared the work of human hearts, 590 
For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles ; 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 69 

And other sights too foul to speak and live 

Were wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fear 

By looking forth : those groans are grief enough. 

Fury 

Behold an emblem : those who do endure 595 

Deep wrongs for man, and scorn and chains, but 

heap 
Thousandfold torment on themselves and him. 

Prometheus 

Remit the anguish of that lighted stare ; 

Close those wan lips ; let that thorn-wounded brow 

Stream not with blood ; it mingles with thy tears ! 600 

Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death. 

So thy sick throes shake not that crucifix. 

So those pale fingers play not with thy gore. 

Oh horrible ! Thy name I will not speak, 

It hath become a curse. I see, I see 605 

The wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just, 

Whom thy slaves hate for being like to thee, 

Some hunted by foul lies from their heart's home, — 

An early-chosen, late-lamented home, — 

As hooded ounces cling to the driven hind ; 610 

Some linked to corpses in unwholesome cells ; 

Some — Hear I not the multitude laugh loud ? — 

Impaled in lingering fire : and mighty realms 

Float by my feet, like sea-uprooted isles, 

Whose sons are kneaded down in common blood 615 

By the red light of their own burning homes. 

Fury 

Blood thou canst see, and fire ; and canst hear groans : 
Worse things, unheard, unseen, remain behind. 



70 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Prometheus 
Worse ? 

Fury 

In each human heart terror survives 
The ruin it has gorged : the loftiest fear 620 

All that they would disdain to think were true : 
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds 
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. 
They dare not devise good for man's estate, 
And yet they know not that they do not dare. 625 
The good want power, but to weep barren tears. 
The powerful goodness want : worse need for them. 
The wise want love ; and those who love want wisdom; 
And all best things are thus confused to ill. 
Many are strong and rich, and would be just, 630 

But live among their suffering fellow-men 
As if none felt : they know not what they do. 

Prometheus 

Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes ; 
And yet I pity those they torture not. 

Fury 

Thou pitiest them ? I speak no more ! 635 

[ Vanishes. 

Prometheus 

Ah woe ! 
Ah woe ! Alas ! pain, pain ever, for ever ! 
I close my tearless eyes, but see more clear 
Thy works within my woe-illumined mind. 
Thou subtle Tyrant ! Peace is in the grave : 
The grave hides all things beautiful and good. 640 
I am a God and cannot find it there. 



FBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 71 

Nor would I seek it : for, though dread revenge, 
This is defeat, fierce King ! not victory. 
The sights with which thou torturest gird my soul 
With new endurance, till the hour arrives 645 

^hen they shall be no types of things which are. 

Panthea 
Alas ! what sawest thou ? 

Prometheus 

There are two woes : 
To speak, and to behold ; thou spare me one. 
Names are there, Nature's sacred watchwords, they 
Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry ; 650 

The nations thronged around, and cried aloud, 
As with one voice. Truth, liberty, and love ! 
Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven 
Among them : there was strife, deceit, and fear : 
Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil. 655 

This was the shadow of the truth I saw. 

The Earth 

I felt thy torture, son, with such mixed joy 

As pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state, 

I bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits, 659 

Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought, 

And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind, 

Its world-surrounding ether : they behold 

Beyond that twilight realm, as in a glass. 

The future : may they speak comfort to thee ! 

Panthea 

Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather, 665 

Like flocks of clouds in spring's delightful weather. 
Thronging in the blue air ! 



72 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

lONE 

And see ! more come, 
Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb, 
That climb up the ravine in scattered lines. 
And hark ! is it the music of the pines ? 670 

Is it the lake ? Is it the waterfall ? 

Panthea 
'T is something sadder, sweeter far than all. 

Chorus of Spirits 

From unremembered ages we 

Gentle guides and guardians be 

Of heaven-oppressed mortality ! 675 

And we breathe, and sicken not, 

The atmosphere of human thought : 

Be it dim, and dank, and gray. 

Like a storm-extinguished day. 

Travelled o'er by dying gleams : 680 

Be it bright as all between 
Cloudless skies and windless streams. 

Silent, liquid, and serene. 
As the birds within the wind. 

As the fish within the wave, 685 

As the thoughts of man's own mind 

Float through all above the grave : 
We make there our liquid lair. 
Voyaging cloudlike and unpent 
Through the boundless element. 690 

Thence we bear the prophecy 
Which begins and ends in thee ! 

lONE 

More yet come, one by one : the air around them 
Looks radiant as the air around a star. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 73 

First Spirit 

On a battle-trumpet's blast 695 

I fled hither, fast, fast, fast, 

'Mid the darkness upward east. 

From the dust of creeds outworn, 

From the tyrant's banner torn, 

Gathering round me, onward borne, 700 

There was mingled many a cry — 

Freedom ! Hope ! Death ! Victory ! 

Till they faded through the sky ; 

And one sound, above, around. 

One sound, beneath, around, above, 705 

Was moving ; 't was the soul of love : 

'T was the hope, the prophecy, 

Which begins and ends in thee. 

Second Spirit 

A rainbow's arch stood on the sea, 

Which rocked beneath, immovably ; 710 

And the triumphant storm did flee. 

Like a conqueror, swift and proud, 

Between, with many a captive cloud, 

A shapeless, dark and rapid crowd, 

Each by lightning riven in half. 715 

I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh : 

Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff 

And spread beneath a hell of death 

O'er the white waters. I alit 

On a great ship lightning-split, 720 

And speeded hither on the sigh 

Of one who gave an enemy 

His plank, then plunged aside to die. 



74 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Third Spirit 

I sate beside a sage's bed, 

And the lamp was burning red 725 

Near the book where he had fed, 

When a Dream with plumes of flame 

To his pillow hovering came, 

And I knew it was the same 

Which had kindled long ago 730 

Pity, eloquence, and woe ; 

And the world awhile below 

Wore the shade its lustre made. 

It has borne me here as fleet 

As Desire's lightning feet : 735 

I must ride it back ere morrow. 

Or the sage will wake in sorrow. 

Fourth Spirit 

On a poet's lips T slept, 

Dreaming like a love-adept 

In the sound his breathing kept; 740 

Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses. 

But feeds on the aerial kisses 

Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. 

He will watch from dawn to gloom 

The lake-reflected sun illume 745 

The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom. 

Nor heed nor see, what things they be ; 

But from these create he can 

Forms more real than living man, 

Nurslings of immortality ! 750 

One of these awakened me. 

And I sped to succour thee. 



PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 75 

lONE 

Behold'st thou not two shapes from the east and west 
Come, as two doves to one beloved nest, 
Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air, 755 

On swift still wings glide down the atmosphere ? 
And, hark ! their sweet, sad voices ! 't is despair 
Mingled with love and then dissolved in sound. 

Panthea 
Canst thou speak, sister? all my words are drowned. 

lONE 

Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float 760 

On their sustaining wings of skyey grain, 

Orange and azure deepening into gold ! 

Their soft smiles light the air like a star's fire. 

Chorus of Spirits 
Hast thou beheld the form of Love ? 

Fifth Spirit 

As over wide dominions 

I sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air's 
wildernesses, 765 

That planet-crested shape swept by on lightning- 
braided pinions, 

Scattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial 
tresses : 

His footsteps paved the world with light; but as I 
passed 't was fading, 

And hollow ruin yawned behind : great sages bound 
in madness. 

And headless patriots, and pale youths who perished, 
unupbraiding, 770 



76 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Gleamed in the night. I wandered o'er, till thou, O 

King of sadness, 
Turned by thy smile the worst I saw to recollected 

gladness. 

Sixth Spirit 

Ah, sister ! Desolation is a delicate thing : 

It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air. 

But treads with silent footstep, and fans with silent 

wing 775 

The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and 

gentlest bear ; 
Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes 

above, 
And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy 

feet, 
Dream visions of aerial joy, and call the monster 

Love, 
And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom 

now we greet. 780 

Chorus 

Though Ruin now Love's shadow be, 
Following him, destroyingly, 

On Death's white and winged steed, 
Which the fleetest cannot flee. 

Trampling down both flower and weed, 785 
Man and beast, and foul and fair, 
Like a tempest through the air ; 
Thou shalt quell this horseman grim, 
Woundless though in heart or limb. 

Prometheus 
Spirits ! how know ye this shall be ? 790 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 7T 

Chorus 

In the atmosphere we breathe, 
As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee, 

From spring gathering up beneath, 
Whose mild winds shake the elder-brake, 
And the wandering herdsmen know 795 

That the white-thorn soon will blow : 
Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace, 
When they struggle to increase, 

Are to us as soft winds be 

To shepherd-boys, the prophecy 800 

Which begins and ends in thee. 

lONE 

Where are the Spirits fled ? 

Panthea 

Only a sense 
Remains of them, like the omnipotence 
Of music, when the inspired voice and lute 
Languish, ere yet the responses are mute, 805 

Which through the deep and labyrinthine soul, 
Like echoes through long caverns, wind and roll. 

Prometheus 

How fair these air-born shapes ! and yet I feel 
Most vain all hope but love ; and thou art far, 
Asia! who, when my being overflowed, 810 

Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine 
Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust. 
All things are still : alas ! how heavily 
This quiet morning weighs upon my heart ; 
Though I should dream I could even sleep with 
grief 815 



78 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

If slumber were denied not. I would fain 

Be what it is my destiny to be, 

The saviour and the strength of suffering man, 

Or sink into the original gulf of things : 

There is no agony, and no solace left ; 820 

Earth can console, Heaven can torment no more. 

Panthea 

Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee 
The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when 
The shadow of thy spirit falls on her? 

Prometheus 
I said all hope was vain but love : thou lovest. 825 

Panthea 

Deeply in truth ; but the eastern star looks white, 

And Asia waits in that far Indian vale. 

The scene of her sad exile ; rugged once 

And desolate and frozen, like this ravine ; 

But now invested with fair flowers and herbs, 830 

And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow 

Among the woods and waters, from the ether 

Of her transforming presence, which would fade 

If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell ! 

ACT II 

Scene I. — Morning. A lovely vale in the Indian 
Caucasus. Asia, alone, 

Asia 

From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended : 
Yes, like a spirit, like a thought which makes 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 79 

Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes, 

And beatings haunt the desolated heart, 

Which should have learnt repose : thou hast descended 

Cradled in tempests ; thou dost wake, O Spring ! 6 

O child of many winds ! As suddenly 

Thou comest as the memory of a dream, 

Which now is sad because it hath been sweet ; 

Like genius, or like joy which riseth up 10 

As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds 

The desert of our life. 

This is the season, this the day, the hour ; 

At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine, 

Too long desired, too long delaying, come ! 15 

How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl ! 

The point af one white star is quivering still 

Deep in the orange light of widening morn 

Beyond the purple mountains : through a chasm 

Of wind-divided mist the darker lake 20 

Reflects it ; now it wanes : it gleams again 

As the waves fade, and as the burning threads 

Of woven cloud unravel in pale air : 

'T is lost ! and through yon peaks of cloudlike snow 

The roseate sunlight quivers : hear I not 25 

The ^olian music of her sea-green plumes 

Winnowing the crimson dawn ? [Panthea enters. 

I feel, I see 
Those eyes which burn through smiles that fade in 

tears. 
Like stars half-quenched in mists of silver dew. 
Beloved and most beautiful, who wearest 30 

The shadow of that soul by which I live, 
How late thou art ! the sphered sun had climbed 
The sea ; my heart was sick with hope, before 
The printless air felt thy belated plumes. 



80 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Panthea 

Pardon, great Sister ! but my wings were faint 35 

With the delight of a remembered dream, 

As are the noontide plumes of summer winds 

Satiate with sweet flowers. I was wont to sleep 

Peacefully, and awake refreshed and calm, 

Before the sacred Titan's fall, and thy 40 

Unhappy love, had made, through use and pity, 

Both love and woe familiar to my heart 

As they had grown to thine : erewhile I slept 

Under the glaucous caverns of old Ocean 

Within dim bowers of green and purple moss, 45 

Our young lone's soft and milky arms 

Locked then, as now, behind my dark, moist hair. 

While my shut eyes and cheek were pressed within 

The folded depth of her life-breathing bosom : 

But not as now, since I am made the wind 50 

Which fails beneath the music that I bear 

Of thy most wordless converse; since dissolved 

Into the sense with which love talks, my rest 

Was troubled and yet sweet ; my waking hours 

Too full of care and pain. 

Asia 

Lift up thine eyes, 55 
And let me read thy dream. 

Panthea 

As I have said, 
With our sea-sister at his feet I slept. 
The mountain mists, condensing at our voice 
Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes. 
From the keen ice shielding our linked sleep. 60 

Then two dreams came. One, I remember not. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 81 

But in the other his pale wound-worn limbs 

Fell from Prometheus, and the azure night 

Grew radiant with the glory of that form 

Which lives unchanged within, and his voice fell 65 

Like music which makes giddy the dim brain, 

Faint with intoxication of keen joy : 

" Sister of her whose footsteps pave the world 

With loveliness — more fair than aught but her, 

Whose shadow thou art — lift thine eyes on me ! " 70 

I lifted them : the overpowering light 

Of that immortal shape was shadowed o'er 

By love ; which, from his soft and flowing limbs. 

And passion-parted lips, and keen, faint eyes. 

Steamed forth like vaporous fire ; an atmosphere 75 

Which wrapt me in its all-dissolving power, 

As the warm ether of the morning sun 

Wraps ere it drinks some cloud of wandering dew. 

I saw not, heard not, moved not, only felt 

His presence flow and mingle through my blood 80 

Till it became his life, and his grew mine, 

And I was thus absorbed, until it past. 

And like the vapours when the sun sinks down, 

Gathering again in drops upon the pines. 

And tremulous as they, in the deep night 85 

My being was condensed ; and as the rays 

Of thought were slowly gathered, I could hear 

His voice, whose accents lingered ere they died 

Like footsteps of weak melody : thy name 

Among the many sounds alone I heard 90 

Of what might be articulate ; though still 

I listened through the night when sound was none. 

lone wakened then, and said to me : 

" Canst thou divine what troubles me to-night ? 

I always knew what I desired before, 95 



82 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Nor ever found delight to wish in vain. 

But now I cannot tell thee what I seek ; 

I know not ; something sweet, since it is sweet 

Even to desire ; it is thy sport, false sister ; 

Thou hast discovered some enchantment old, 100 

Whose spells have stolen my spirit as I slept 

And mingled it with thine : for when just now 

We kissed, I felt within thy parted lips 

The sweet air that sustained me, and the warmth 

Of the life-blood, for loss of which I faint, 105 

Quivered between our intertwining arms." 

I answered not, for the eastern star grew pale, 

But fled to thee. 

Asia 

Thou speakest, but thy words 
Are as the air : I feel them not. Oh, lift 
Thine eyes, that I may read his written soul ! 110 

Panthea 

I lift them, though they droop beneath the load 
Of that they would express : what canst thou see 
But thine own fairest shadow imaged there ? 

Asia 

Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven 
Contracted to two circles underneath 115 

Their long, fine lashes ; dark, far, measureless. 
Orb within orb, and line through line inwoven. 

Panthea 
Why lookest thou as if a spirit past? 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 83 

Asia 

There is a change : beyond their inmost depth 

I see a shade, a shape : 't is He, arrayed 120 

In the soft light of his own smiles, which spread 

Like radiance from the cloud-surrounded moon. 

Prometheus, it is thine ! Depart not yet ! 

Say not those smiles that we shall meet again 

Within that bright pavilion which their beams 125 

Shall build on the waste world ? The dream is told. 

What shape is that between us ? Its rude hair 

Roughens the wind that lifts it, its regard 

Is wild and quick, yet 't is a thing of air. 

For through its gray robe gleams the golden dew 130 

Whose stars the noon has quenched not. 

Dream 

Follow! Follow! 

Panthea 

It is mine other dream. 

Asia 

It disappears. 

Panthea 

It passes now into my mind. Methought 

As we sate here, the flower-enfolding buds 

Burst on yon lightning-blasted almond-tree, 135 

When swift from the white Scythian wilderness 

A wind swept forth wrinkling the earth with frost : 

I looked, and all the blossoms were blown down ; 

But on each leaf was stamped, as the blue bells 

Of Hyacinth tell Apollo's written grief, 140 

O, FOLLOW, follow! 



84 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Asia 

As you speak, your words 
Fill, pause by pause, my own forgotten sleep 
With shapes. Methought among the lawns to- 
gether 
We wandered, underneath the young gray dawn, 
And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds 145 

Were wandering in thick flocks along the moun- 
tains, 
Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind ; 
And the white dew on the new-bladed grass, 
Just piercing the dark earth, hung silently ; 
And there was more which I remember not : 150 

But on the shadows of the morning clouds. 
Athwart the purple mountain slope, was written 
Follow, O, follow ! as they vanished by ; 
And on each herb, from which Heaven's dew had 

fallen. 
The like was stamped, as with a withering fire; 155 
A wind arose among the pines : it shook 
The clinging music from their boughs, and then 
Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of 

. ghosts, • 

Were heard : O, follow, follow, follow me ! 
And then I said : " Panthea, look on me ! " 160 

But in the depth of those beloved eyes 

Still I saw, FOLLOW, FOLLOW ! 

Echo 

Follow, follow ! 

Panthea 

The crags, this clear spring morning, mock our voices, 
As they were spirit-tongued. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 85 

Asia 

It is some being 164 
Around the crags. What fine clear sounds ! O, list ! 

Echoes (unseen) 

Echoes we : listen ! 

We cannot stay : 
As dew-stars glisten 

Then fade away — 

Child of Ocean ! 170 

Asia 

Hark ! Spirits speak. The liquid responses 
Of their aerial tongues yet sound. 

Panthea 

I hear. 

Echoes 

O, follow, follow, 

As our voice recedeth 
Through the caverns hollow, 175 

Where the forest spreadeth ; 

{More distant.) 

O, follow, follow ! 
Through the caverns hollow, 
As the song floats thou pursue. 
Where the wild bee never flew, 180 

Through the noontide darkness deep. 
By the odour-breathing sleep 
Of faint night-flowers, and the waves 
At the fountain-lighted caves, 
While our music, wild and sweet, 185 

Mocks thy gently falling feet. 

Child of Ocean ! 



86 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Asia 

Shall we pursue the sound ? It grows more faint 
And distant. 

Panthea 

List ! the strain floats nearer now. 

Echoes 

In the world unknown 190 

Sleeps a voice unspoken ; 
By thy step alone 

Can its rest be broken ; 
Child of Ocean ! 

Asia 
How the notes sink upon the ebbing wind ! 195 

Echoes 

O, follow, follow ! 
Through the caverns hollow, 
As the song floats thou pursue, 
By the woodland noontide dew, 
' By the forests, lakes, and fountains, 200 

Through the many-folded mountains ; 
To the rents, and gulfs, and chasms, 
Where the Earth reposed from spasms, 
On the day when He and Thou 
Parted, to commingle now ; 205 

Child of Ocean ! 

Asia 

Come, sweet Panthea, link thy hand in mine, 
And follow, ere the voices fade away. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 87 

Scene II. — A Forest, intermingled with Hocks and 
Caverns, Asia and Panthea pass into it. Two young 
Fauns are sitting on a Rock, listening. 

Semichorus I OF Spirits 

The path through which that lovely twain 

Have past, by cedar, pine, and yew, 210 

And each dark tree that ever grew, 

Is curtained out from heaven's wide blue ; 

Nor sun, nor moon, nor wind, nor rain. 
Can pierce its interwoven bowers. 
Nor aught, save where some cloud of dew, 215 

Drifted along the earth-creeping breeze, 

Between the trunks of the hoar trees, 

Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers 
Of the green laurel, blown anew ; 

And bends, and then fades silently, 220 

One frail and fair anemone : 

Or when some star of many a one 

That climbs and wanders through steep night, 

Has found the cleft through which alone 

Beams fall from high those depths upon, 225 

Ere it is borne away, away. 

By the swift heavens that cannot stay, 

It scatters drops of golden light. 

Like lines of rain that ne'er unite : 

And the gloom divine is all around ; 230 

And underneath is the mossy ground. 

Semichorus II 

There the voluptuous nightingales. 

Are awake through all the broad noonday. 

When one with bliss or sadness fails. 

And through the windless ivy-boughs, 235 

Sick with sweet love, droops dying away 



88 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

On its mate's music-panting bosom ; 
Another, from the swinging blossom, 

Watching to catch the languid close 

Of the last strain, then lifts on high 240 

The wings of the weak melody, 
Till some new strain of feeling bear 

The song, and all the woods are mute ; 
When there is heard through the dim air 
The rush of wings, and rising there 245 

Like many a lake-surrounded flute, 
Sounds overflow the listener's brain 
So sweet, that joy is almost pain. 

Semichorus I 

There those enchanted eddies play 

Of echoes, music-tongued, which draw, 250 

By Demogorgon's mighty law, 

With melting rapture, or sweet awe. 
All spirits on that secret way ; 

As inland boats are driven to Ocean 
Down streams made strong with mountain-thaw ; 255 
And first there comes a gentle sound 
To those in talk or slumber bound. 

And wakes the destined soft emotion, 
Attracts, impels them : those who saw 

Say from the breathing earth behind 260 

There steams a plume-uplifting wind 
Which drives them on their path, while they 

Believe their own swift wings and feet 
The sweet desires within obey : 
And so they float upon their way, 265 

Until, still sweet, but loud and strong, 
The storm of sound is driven along, 

Sucked up and hurrying : as they fleet 

Behind, its gathering billows meet 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 89 

And to the fatal mountain bear 270 

Like clouds amid the yielding air. 

First Faun 

Canst thou imagine where those spirits live 

Which make such delicate music in the woods ? 

We haunt within the least frequented caves 

And closest coverts, and we know these wilds, 275 

Yet never meet them, though we hear them oft: 

Where may they hide themselves ? 

Second Faun 

'T is hard to tell : 
I have heard those more skilled in spirits say, 
The bubbles, which the enchantment of the sun 
Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave 280 
The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools, 
Are the pavilions where such dwell and float 
Under the green and golden atmosphere 
Which noontide kindles through the woven leaves ; 
And when these burst, and the thin fiery air, 285 

The which they breathed within those lucent 

domes. 
Ascends to flow like meteors through the night, 
They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed. 
And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire 
Under the waters of the earth again. 290 

First Faun 

If such live thus, have others other lives, 

Under pink blossoms or within the bells 

Of meadow flowers, or folded violets deep. 

Or on their dying odours, when they die, 

Or in the sunlight of the sphered dew ? 295 



90 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Second Faun 

Ay, many more which we may well divine. 

But should we stay to speak, noontide would come, 

And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn, 

And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs 

Of fate, and chance, and God, and Chaos old, 300 

And Love, and the chained Titan's woful doom. 

And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth 

One brotherhood : delightful strains which cheer 

Our solitary twilights, and which charm 

To silence the unenvying nightingales. 305 

Scene III. — A Pinnacle of Rock among Mountains. 
Asia and Panthea. 

Panthea 

Hither the sound has borne us — to the realm 

Of Demogorgon, and the mighty portal. 

Like a volcano's meteor-breathing chasm. 

Whence the oracular vapour is hurled up 

Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth, 310 

And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy, 

That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain 

To deep intoxication ; and uplift, 

Like Msenads who cry loud, Evoe ! Evoe ! 

The voice which is contagion to the world. 315 

Asia 

Fit throne for such a Power ! Magnificent ! 

How glorious art thou. Earth ! And if thou be 

The shadow of some spirit lovelier still. 

Though evil stain its work, and it should be 

Like its creation, weak yet beautiful, 320 

I could fall down and worship that and thee. 

Even now my heart adoreth. Wonderful ! 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 91 

Look, sister, ere the vapour dim thy brain : 

Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist. 

As a lake, paving in the morning sky, 325 

With azure waves which burst in silver light, 

Some Indian vale. Behold it, rolling on 

Under the curdling winds, and islanding 

The peak whereon we stand, midway, around, 

Encinctured by the dark and blooming forests, 330 

Dim twilight lawns, and stream-illumined caves, 

And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist; 

And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains 

From icy spires of sunlike radiance fling 

The dawn, as lifted Ocean's dazzling spray, 335 

From some Atlantic islet scattered up. 

Spangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops. 

The vale is girdled with their walls, a howl 

Of cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines 

Satiates the listening wind, continuous, vast, 340 

Awful as silence. Hark ! the rushing snow ! 

The sun-awakened avalanche ! whose mass, 

Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there 

Flake after flake, in heaven-defying minds 344 

As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth 

Is loosened, and the nations echo round, 

Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now. 

Panthea 

Look how the gusty sea of mist is breaking 

In crimson foam, even at our feet ! it rises 

As Ocean at the enchantment of the moon 350 

Round foodless men wrecked on some oozy isle. 

Asia 

The fragments of the cloud are scattered up; 
The wind that lifts them disentwines my hair ; 



92 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Its billows now sweep o'er mine eyes ; my brain 
Grows dizzy; I see thin shapes within the mist. 355 

Panthea 

A countenance with beckoning smiles : there burns 
An azure fire within its golden locks ! 
Another and another : hark ! they speak ! 

Song of Spirits 

To the deep, to the deep, 

Down, down ! 360 

Through the shade of sleep, 
Through the cloudy strife 
Of Death and of Life ; 
Through the veil and the bar 
Of things which seem and are, 365 

Even to the steps of the remotest throne, 
Down, down ! 

While the sound whirls around, 

Down, down ! 
As the fawn draws the hound, 370 

As the lightning the vapour. 
As a weak moth the taper ; 
Death, despair ; love, sorrow ; 
Time, both; to-day, to-morrow: 
As steel obeys the spirit of the stone; 375 

Down, down ! 

Through the gray, void abysm, 

Down, down ! 
Where the air is no prism. 
And the moon and stars are not, 380 

And the cavern-crags wear not 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 93 

The radiance of Heaven 
Nor the gloom to Earth given, 
Where there is one pervading, one alone, — 

Down, down ! 385 

In the depth of the deep, 

Down, down ! 
Like veiled lightning asleep, 
Like the spark nursed in embers, 
The last look Love remembers, 390 

Like a diamond, which shines 
On the dark wealth of mines, 
A spell is treasured but for thee alone. 

Down, down ! 

We have bound thee, we guide thee ; 395 

Down, down ! 
With the bright form beside thee ; 
Kesist not the weakness ! 
Such strength is in meekness 
That the Eternal, the Immortal, 400 

Must unloose through life's portal 
The snake-like Doom coiled underneath his throne 
By that alone. 

Scene IV. — The Cave of Demogorgon. Asia and 

Panthea. 

Panthea 

What veiled form sits on that ebon throne ? 

Asia 
The veil has fallen. 

Panthea 

I see a mighty darkness 405 



94 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom 
Dart round, as light from the meridian sun, 
Ungazed upon and shapeless ; neither limb. 
Nor form, nor outline ; yet we feel it is 
A living Spirit. 

Demogorgon 
Ask what thou wouldst know. 410 

Asia 
What canst thou tell ? 

Demogorgon 
All things thou dar'st demand. 

Asia 
Who made the living world ? 

Demogorgon 

God. 

Asia 

Who made all 
That it contains ? thought, passion, reason, will, 
Imagination ? 

Demogorgon 
God : Almighty God. 

Asia 

Who made that sense which, when the winds of spring 
In rarest visitation, or the voice 416 

Of one beloved heard in youth alone, 
Fills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 95 

The radiant looks of unbewailing flowers, 

And leaves this peopled earth a solitude 420 

When it returns no more ? 

Demogorgon 

Merciful God. 

Asia 

And who made terror, madness, crime, remorse, 

Which from the links of the great chain of things, 

To every thought within the mind of man 

Sway and drag heavily, and each one reels 425 

Under the load towards the pit of death ; 

Abandoned hope, and love that turns to hate ; 

And self -contempt, bitterer to drink than blood ; 

Pain, whose unheeded and familiar speech 

Is howling, and keen shrieks, day after day ; 430 

And Hell, or the sharp fear of Hell ? 

Demogorgon 

His reigns. 

Asia 

Utter his name : a world pining in pain 

Asks but his name : curses shall drag him down. 

Demogorgon 
He reigns. 

Asia 
I feel, I know it : who ? 

Demogorgon 

He reigns. 434 

Asia 
Who reigns ? There was the Heaven and Earth at first, 



96 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

And Light and Love ; then Saturn, from whose throne 

Time fell, an envious shadow : such the state 

Of the earth's primal spirits beneath his sway, 

As the calm joy of flowers and living leaves 

Before the wind or sun has withered them 440 

And semivital worms ; but he refused 

The birthright of their being, knowledge, power, 

The skill which wields the elements, the thought 

Which pierces this dim universe like light. 

Self-empire, and the majesty of love ; 445 

For thirst of which they fainted. Then Prometheus 

Gave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter, 

And with this law alone, " Let man be free," 

Clothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven. 

To know nor faith, nor love, nor law, to be 450 

Omnipotent but friendless, is to reign ; 

And Jove now reigned ; for on the race of man 

First famine, and then toil, and then disease, 

Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before. 

Fell ; and the unseasonable seasons drove, 455 

With alternating shafts of frost and fire, 

Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves: 

And in their desert hearts fierce wants he sent, 

And mad disquietudes, and shadows idle 

Of unreal good, which levied mutual war, 460 

So ruining the lair wherein they raged. 

Prometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopes 

Which sleep within folded Elysian flowers. 

Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth, fadeless blooms. 

That they might hide with thin and rainbow wings 465 

The shape of Death ; and Love he sent to bind 

The disunited tendrils of that vine 

Which bears the wine of life, the human heart ; 

And he tamed fire, which, like some beast of prey. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 97 

Most terrible, but lovely, played beneath 470 

The frown of man ; and tortured to his will 

Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power, 

And gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms 

Hidden beneath the mountains and the waves. 

He gave man speech, and speech created thought, 475 

Which is the measure of the universe ; 

And Science struck the thrones of earth and heaven, 

Which shook, but fell not ; and the harmonious mind 

Poured itself forth in all-prophetic song ; 

And music lifted up the listening spirit 480 

Until it walked, exempt from mortal care, 

Godlike, o'er the clear billows of sweet sound ; 

And human hands first mimicked and then mocked, 

With moulded limbs more lovely than its own. 

The human form, till marble grew divine, 485 

And mothers, gazing, drank the love men see 

Reflected in their race, behold, and perish. 

He told the hidden power of herbs and springs. 

And Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep. 

He taught the implicated orbits woven 490 

Of the wide-wandering stars ; and how the sun 

Changes his lair, and by what secret spell 

The pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye 

Gazes not on the interlunar sea. 

He taught to rule, as life directs the limbs, 495 

The tempest-winged chariots of the Ocean, 

And the Celt knew the Indian. Cities then 

Were built, and through their snow-like columns 

flowed 
The warm winds, and the azure ether shone. 
And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen. 500 
Such, the alleviations of his state, 
Prometheus gave to man, for which he hangs 



98 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Withering in destined pain :' but who rains down 

Evil, the immedicable plague, which, while 

Man looks on his creation like a God 505 

And sees that it is glorious, drives him on, 

The wreck of his own will, the scorn of earth. 

The outcast, the abandoned, the alone ? 

Not Jove : while yet his frown shook heaven, ay, when 

His adversary from adamantine chains 510 

Cursed him, he trembled like a slave. Declare 

Who is his master ? Is he too a slave ? 

Demogorgon 

All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil : 
Thou knowest if Jupiter be such or no. 

Asia 
Whom calledst thou God ? 

Demogorgon 

I spoke but as ye speak. 
For Jove is the supreme of living things. 516 

Asia 
Who is master of the slave ? 

Demogorgon 

If the abysm 
Could vomit forth his secrets. . . . But a voice 
Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless ; 
For what would it avail to bid thee gaze 520 

On the revolving world ? what to bid speak 
Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance, and Change ? To these 
All things are subject but eternal Love. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 99 

Asia 

So much I asked before, and my heart gave 

The response thou hast given ; and of such truths 525 

Each to itself must be the oracle. 

One more demand ; and do thou answer me 

As my own soul would answer, did it know 

That which I ask. Prometheus shall arise 

Henceforth the sun of this rejoicing world : 530 

When shall the destined hour arrive ? 

Demogorgon 

Behold! 

Asia 

The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night 
I see cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds 
Which trample the dim winds : in each there stands 
A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight. 535 

Some look behind, as fiends pursue them there, 
And yet I see no shape, but the keen stars : 
Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink 
With eager lips the wind of their own speed, 
As if the thing they loved fled on before, 540 

And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks 
Stream like a comet's flashing hair: they all 
Sweep onward. 

Demogorgon 

These are the immortal Hours, 
Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee. 

Asia 

A spirit with a dreadful countenance 545 

Checks its dark chariot by the craggy gulf. 
Unlike thy brethren, ghastly charioteer. 
Who art thou? Whither wouldst thou bear me? Speak! 



100 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Spirit 

I am the shadow of a destiny 

More dread than is my aspect : ere yon planet 550 

Has set, the darkness which ascends with me 

Shall wrap in lasting night Heaven's kingless throne. 

Asia 
What meanest thou ? 

Panthea 

That terrible shadow floats 
Up from its throne, as may the lurid smoke 
Of earthquake-ruined cities o'er the sea. 555 

Lo ! it ascends the car ; the coursers fly 
Terrified : watch its path among the stars 
Blackening the night ! 

Asia 
Thus I am answered : strange ! 

Panthea 

See, near the verge, another chariot stays ; 

An ivory shell inlaid with crimson fire, 560 

Which come§ and goes within its sculptured rim 

Of delicate strange tracery ; the young spirit 

That guides it has the dove-like eyes of hope ; 

How its soft smiles attract the soul ! as light 

Lures winged insects through the lampless air. 565 

Spirit 

My coursers are fed with the lightning. 

They drink of the whirlwind's stream. 
And when the red morning is brightening, 

They bathe in the fresh sunbeam ; 

They have strength for their swiftness I deem, 570 
Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 101 

I desire : and their speed makes night kindle ; 
I fear : they outstrip the typhoon ; 

Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle 

We encircle the earth and the moon : 575 

We shall rest from long labours at noon : 

Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean. 

Scene V. — The Car pauses within a Cloud on the Top of 
a snowy Mountain. Asia, Panthea, and the Spirit of 
THE Hour. 

Spirit 

On the brink of the night and the morning 
My coursers are wont to respire ; 

But the Earth has just whispered a warning 580 
That their flight must be swifter than fire : 
They shall drink the hot speed of desire ! 

Asia 

Thou breathest on their nostrils, but my breath 
Would give them swifter speed. 

Spirit 

Alas ! it could not. 

Panthea 

O Spirit ! pause, and tell whence is the light 585 

Which fills the cloud ? The sun is yet unrisen. 

Spirit 

The sun will rise not until noon. Apollo 

Is held in heaven by wonder ; and the light 

Which fills this vapour, as the aerial hue 

Of fountain-gazing roses fills the water, 590 

Flows from thy mighty sister. 



102 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Panthea 

Yes, I feel — 
Asia 

What is it with thee, sister ? Thou art pale. 

Panthea 

How thou art changed ! I dare not look on thee ; 

I feel but see thee not. I scarce endure 

The radiance of thy beauty. Some good change 595 

Is working in the elements, which suffer 

Thy presence thus unveiled. The Nereids tell 

That on the day when the clear hyaline 

Was cloven at thy uprise, and thou didst stand 

Within a veined shell, which floated on 600 

Over the calm floor of the crystal sea, 

Among the JEgean isles, and by the shores 

Which bear thy name ; love, like the atmosphere 

Of the sun's fire filling the living world. 

Burst from thee, and illumined earth and heaven 605 

And the deep ocean and the sunless caves. 

And all that dwells within them ; till grief cast 

Eclipse upon the soul from which it came. 

Such art thou now ; nor is it I alone, 

Thy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one, 610 

But the whole world which seeks thy sympathy. 

Hearest thou not sounds i' the air which speak the love 

Of all articulate beings ? Feelest thou not 

The inanimate winds enamoured of thee ? List ! 

Asia 

Thy words are sweeter than aught else but his 615 
Whose echoes they are : yet all love is sweet, 
Given or returned. Common as light is love, 
And its familiar voice wearies not ever. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 103 

Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air, 

It makes the reptile equal to the God : 620 

They who inspire it most are fortunate, 

As I am now ; but those who feel it most 

Are happier still, after long sufferings, 

As I shall soon become. 

Panthea 

List ! Spirits speak. 

Voice in the air, singing. 

Life of Life ! thy lips enkindle 625 

With their love the breath between them ; 

And thy smiles before they dwindle 

Make the cold air fire ; then screen them 

In those looks, where whoso gazes 

Faints, entangled in their mazes. 630 

Child of Light ! thy limbs are burning 

Through the vest which seems to hide them ; 

As the radiant lines of morning 

Through the clouds ere they divide them ; 

And this atmosphere divinest 635 

Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest. 

Fair are others ; none beholds thee. 
But thy voice sounds low and tender 

Like the fairest ; for it folds thee 

From the sight, that liquid splendour, 640 

And all feel, yet see thee never, 

As I feel now, lost for ever! 

Lamp of Earth ! where'er thou mo vest 
Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, 



104 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

And the souls of whom thou lovest 645 

Walk upon the winds with lightness, 
Till they fail, as I am failing, 
Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing ! 

Asia 

My soul is an enchanted boat, 

Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float 650 

Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ; 

And thine doth like an angel sit 

Beside the helm conducting it. 
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing. 

It seems to float ever, for ever, • 655 

Upon that many-winding river. 

Between mountains, woods, abysses, 

A paradise of wildernesses ! 
Till, like one in slumber bound. 

Borne to the ocean, I float down, around, 660 

Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound. 

Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions 

In music's most serene dominions ; 
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven. 

And we sail on, away, afar, 665 

Without a course, without a star. 
But by the instinct of sweet music driven ; 

Till through Elysian garden-islets 

By thee, most beautiful of pilots, 

Where never mortal pinnace glided, 670 

The boat of my desire is guided : 
Kealms where the air we breathe is love. 
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move. 
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 106 

We have passed Age's icy caves, 675 

And Manhood's dark and tossing waves, 
And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray : 

Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee 

Of shadow-peopled Infancy, 
Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day : 680 

A paradise of vaulted bowers 

Lit by downward-gazing flowers, 

And watery paths that wind between 

Wildernesses calm and green. 
Peopled by shapes too bright to see, 685 

And rest, having beheld ; somewhat like thee ; 
Which walk upon the sea, and chaunt melodiously ! 



ACT III 

Scene I. — Heaven. Jupiter on his Throne ; Thetis 
and the other Deities assembled, 

Jupiter 

Ye congregated powers of heaven, who share 

The glory and the strength of him ye serve. 

Rejoice ! henceforth I am omnipotent. 

All else had been subdued to me ; alone 

The soul of man, like unextinguished fire, 5 

Yet burns towards heaven with fierce reproach, 

and doubt. 
And lamentation, and reluctant prayer. 
Hurling up insurrection, which might make 
Our antique empire insecure, though built 
On eldest faith, and hell's coeval, fear ; 10 

And though my curses through the pendulous air, 
Like snow on herbless peaks, fall flake by flake. 
And cling to it ; though under my wrath's night 



106 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

It climb the crags of life, step after step, 

Which wound it, as ice wounds unsandalled feet, 15 

It yet remains supreme o'er misery. 

Aspiring, unrepressed, yet soon to fall : 

Even now have I begotten a strange wonder, 

That fatal child, the terror of the earth. 

Who waits but till the destined hour arrive, 20 

Bearing from Demogorgon's vacant throne 

The dreadful might of ever-living limbs 

Which clothed that awful spirit unbeheld, 

To redescend, and trample out the spark. 

Pour forth heaven's wine, Idaean Ganymede, 25 

And let it fill the daedal cups like fire, 

And from the flower-inwoven soil divine 

Ye all-triumphant harmonies arise. 

As dew from earth under the twilight stars : 

Drink ! be the nectar circling through your veins 30 

The soul of joy, ye ever-living Gods, 

Till exultation burst in one wide voice 

Like music from Elysian winds. 

And thou 
Ascend beside me, veiled in the light 
Of the desire which makes thee one with me, 35 

Thetis, bright image of eternity ! 
When thou didst cry, " Insufferable might ! 
God ! spare me ! I sustain not the quick flames. 
The penetrating presence ; all my being. 
Like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw 40 

Into a dew with poison, is dissolved. 
Sinking through its foundations : " even then 
Two mighty spirits, mingling, made a third 
Mightier than either, which, unbodied now, 
Between us floats, felt, although unbeheld, 45 



PEOMETHEUS UNBOUND 107 

Waiting the incarnation, which ascends, 

(Hear ye the thunder of the fiery wheels 

Griding the winds ? ) from Demogorgon's throne. 

Victory ! victory ! FeeFst thou not, O world, 

The earthquake of his chariot thundering up 50 

Olympus ? 

[TAe Car of the Hour arrives, Demogor- 
GON descends, and moves towards the 
Throne 0/ Jupiter. 
Awful shape, what art thou ? Speak ! 

Demogorgon 

Eternity. Demand no direr name ! 

Descend, and follow me down the abyss ! 

I am thy child, as thou wert Saturn's child ; 

Mightier than thee : and we must dwell together 55 

Henceforth in darkness. Lift thy lightnings not ! 

The tyranny of heaven none may retain, 

Or reassume, or hold, succeeding thee : 

Yet, if thou wilt, as 't is the destiny 

Of trodden worms to writhe till they are dead, 60 

Put forth thy might ! 

Jupiter 

Detested prodigy ! 
Even thus beneath the deep Titanian prisons 
I trample thee ! Thou lingerest ? 

Mercy ! mercy ! 
No pity, no release, no respite ! Oh, 
That thou wouldst make mine enemy my judge, 65 
Even where he hangs, seared by my long revenge, 
On Caucasus ! he would not doom me thus. 
Gentle, and just, and dreadless, is he not 
The monarch of the world ? What then art thou? 
No refuge ! no appeal ! 



108 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Sink with me then, 70 

We two will sink on the wide waves of ruin, 
Even as a vulture and a snake outspent 
Drop, twisted in inextricable fight, 
Into a shoreless sea. Let hell unlock 
Its mounded oceans of tempestuous fire, 75 

And whelm on them into the bottomless void 
This desolated world, and thee, and me, 
The conqueror and the conquered, and the wreck 
Of that for which they combated ! 

Ai! Ai! 
The elements obey me not. I sink 80 

Dizzily down, ever, for ever, down. 
And, like a cloud, mine enemy above 
Darkens my fall with victory ! Ai ! Ai ! 

Scene II. — The Mouth of a great River in the Island 
Atlantis, Ocean is discovered reclining near the 
Shore ; ApollO stands beside him. 

Ocean 
He fell, thou sayest, beneath his conqueror's frown ? 

Apollo 

Ay, when the strife was ended which made dim 85 

The orb I rule, and shook the solid stars. 

The terrors of his eye illumined heaven 

With sanguine light, through the thick ragged skirts 

Of the victorious darkness, as he fell : 

Like the last glare of day's red agony, 90 

Which, from a rent among the fiery clouds. 

Burns far along the tempest-wrinkled deep. 

Ocean 
He sunk to the abyss ? to the dark void ? 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND . 109 

Apollo 

An eagle so caught in some bursting cloud 

On Caucasus, his thunder-baffled wings 95 

Entangled in the whirlwind, and his eyes 

Which gazed on the undazzling sun, now blinded 

By the white lightning, while the ponderous hail 

Beats on his struggling form, which sinks at length 

Prone, and the aerial ice clings over it. 100 

Ocean 

Henceforth the fields of Heaven-reflecting sea 

Which are my realm, will heave, unstained with blood. 

Beneath the uplifting winds, like plains of corn 

Swayed by the summer air ; my streams will flow 

Round many-peopled continents, and round 105 

Fortunate isles; and from their glassy thrones 

Blue Proteus and his humid nymphs shall mark 

The shadow of fair ships, as mortals see 

The floating bark of the light-laden moon 

With that white star, its sightless pilot's crest, 110 

Borne down the rapid sunset's ebbing sea ; 

Tracking their path no more by blood and groans, 

And desolation, and the mingled voice 

Of slavery and command ; but by the light 

Of wave-reflected flowers, and floating odours, 115 

And music soft, and mild, free, gentle voices, 

That sweetest music, such as spirits love. 

Apollo 

And I shall gaze not on the deeds which make 
My mind obscure with sorrow, as eclipse 
Darkens the sphere I guide ; but list, I hear 120 

The small, clear, silver lute of the young Spirit 
That sits i' the morning star. 



110 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Ocean 

Thou must away ; 
Thy steeds will pause at even, till when farewell: 
The loud deep calls me home even now to feed it 
With azure calm out of the emerald urns 125 

Which stand for ever full beside my throne. 
Behold the Nereids under the green sea, 
Their wavering limbs borne on the wind-like stream, 
Their white arms lifted o'er their streaming hair 
With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns, 130 
Hastening to grace their mighty sister's joy. 

\^A sound of waves is heard. 
It is the unpastured sea hungering for calm. 
Peace, monster ; I come now. Farewell. 

Apollo 

Farewell. 

Scene III. — Caucasus. Prometheus, Hercules, Ione, 
the Earth, Spirits, Asia, and Panthea, home in the 
Car with the Spirit of the Hour. 

Hercules unbinds Prometheus, who descends. 

Hercules 

Most glorious among spirits ! thus doth strength 
To wisdom, courage, and long-suffering love, 135 

And thee, who art the form they animate. 
Minister like a slave. 

Prometheus 

Thy gentle words 
Are sweeter even than freedom long desired 
And long delayed. 

Asia, thou light of life, 
Shadow of beauty unbeheld ; and ye, 140 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 111 

Fair sister nymphs, who made long years of pain 

Sweet to remember, through your love and care : 

Henceforth we will not part. There is a cave, 

All overgrown with trailing odorous plants 144 

Which curtain out the day with leaves and flowers, 

And paved with veined emerald, and a fountain 

Leaps in the midst with an awakening sound. 

From its curved roof the mountain's frozen tears. 

Like snow, or silver, or long diamond spires. 

Hang downward, raining forth a doubtful light : 150 

And there is heard the ever-moving air. 

Whispering without from tree to tree, and birds, 

And bees ; and all around are mossy seats, 

And the rough walls are clothed with long soft grass; 

A simple dwelling, which shall be our own ; 155 

Where we will sit and talk of time and change. 

As the world ebbs and flows, ourselves unchanged. 

What can hide man from mutability? 

And if ye sigh, then I will smile ; and thou, 

lone, shalt chaunt fragments of sea-music, 160 

Until I weep, when ye shall smile away 

The tears she brought, which yet were sweet to shed. 

We will entangle buds and flowers and beams 

Which twinkle on the fountain's brim, and make 

Strange combinations out of common things, 165 

Like human babes in their brief innocence ; 

And we will search, with looks and words of love. 

For hidden thoughts each lovelier than the last. 

Our unexhausted spirits ; and like lutes 

Touched by the skill of the enamoured wind, 170 

Weave harmonies divine, yet ever new, 

From difference sweet where discord cannot be ; 

And hither come, sped on the charmed winds 

Which meet from all the points of heaven, as bees 



112 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

From every flower aerial Enna feeds, 175 

At their own island-homes in Himera, 

The echoes of the human world, which tell 

Of the low voice of love, almost unheard, 

And dove-eyed pity's murmured pain, and music. 

Itself the echo of the heart, and all 180 

That tempers or improves man's life, now free ; 

And lovely apparitions, dim at first. 

Then radiant, as the mind, arising bright 

From the embrace of beauty, whence th^ forms 

Of which these are the phantoms, casts on them 185 

The gathered rays which are reality. 

Shall visit us, the progeny immortal 

Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy, 

And arts, though unimagined, yet to be. 

The wandering voices and the shadows these 190 

Of all that man becomes, the mediators 

Of that best worship, love, by him and us 

Given and returned ; swift shapes and sounds, which 

grow 
More fair and soft as man grows wise and kind, 
And, veil by veil, evil and error fall : 195 

Such virtue has the cave and place around. 

\_Turning to the Spirit of the Hour. 
For thee, fair Spirit, one toil remains. lone, 
Give her that curved shell, which Proteus old 
Made Asia's nuptial boon, breathing within it 
A voice to be accomplished, and which thou 200 

Didst hide in grass under the hollow rock. 

lONE 

Thou most desired Hour, hiore loved and lovely 
Than all thy sisters, this [is] the mystic shell. 
See the pale azure fading into silver 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 113 

Lining it with a soft yet glowing light : 205 

Looks it not like lulled music sleeping there ? 

Spirit 

It seems in truth the fairest shell of Ocean : 

Its sound must be at once both sweet and strange. 

Prometheus 

Go, borne over the cities of mankind 

On whirlwind-footed coursers : once again 210 

Outspeed the sun around the orb^d world ; 

And as thy chariot cleaves the kindling air, 

Thou breathe into the many -folded shell. 

Loosening its mighty music ; it shall be 

As thunder mingled with clear echoes : then 215 

Return ; and thou shalt dwell beside our cave. 

And thou, O Mother Earth ! — 

The Earth 

I hear, I feel ; 
Thy lips are on me, and thy touch runs down 
Even to the adamantine central gloom 
Along these marble nerves ; 't is life, 't is joy, 220 
And through my withered, old, and icy frame 
The warmth of an immortal youth shoots down 
Circling. Henceforth the many children fair 
Folded in my sustaining arms : all plants. 
And creeping forms, and insects rainbow-winged, 225 
And birds, and beasts, and fish, and human shapes. 
Which drew disease and pain from my wan bosom, 
Draining the poison of despair, shall take 
And interchange sweet nutriment ; to me 
Shall they become like sister-antelopes 230 



114 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

By one fair dam, snow-white and swift as wind, 
Nursed among lilies near a brimming stream. 
The dew-mists of my sunless sleep shall float 
Under the stars like balm : night-folded flowers 
Shall suck unwithering hues in their repose : 235 

And men and beasts in happy dreams shall gather 
Strength for the coming day, and all its joy : 
And death shall be the last embrace of her 
Who takes the life she gave, even as a mother. 
Folding her child, says, " Leave me not again ! " 240 

Asia 

O mother ! wherefore speak the name of death? 

Cease they to love, and move, and breathe, and speak. 

Who die? 

The Earth 

It would avail not to reply : 
Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known 
But to the uncommunicating dead. 245 

Death is the veil which those who live call life : 
They sleep, and it is lifted : and meanwhile 
In mild variety the seasons mild 
With rainbow-skirted showers, and odorous winds, 
And long blue meteors cleansing the dull night, 250 
And the life-kindling shafts of the keen sun's 
All-piercing bow, and the dew-mingled rain 
Of the calm moonbeams, a soft influence mild. 
Shall clothe the forests and the fields, ay, even 
The crag-built deserts of the barren deep, 255 

With ever-living leaves, and fruits, and flowers. 
And thou ! There is a cavern where my spirit 
Was panted forth in anguish whilst th}^ pain 
Made my heart mad, and those who did inhale it 
Became mad too, and built a temple there, 260 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 115 

And spoke, and were oracular, and lured 

The erring nations round to mutual war, 

And faithless faith, such as Jove kept with thee ; 

Which breath now rises, as amongst tall weeds 

A violet's exhalation, and it fills 265 

With a serener light and crimson air, 

Intense, yet soft, the rocks and woods around ; 

It feeds the quick growth of the serpent vine, 

And the dark linked ivy tangling wild. 

And budding, blown, or odour-faded blooms 270 

Which star the winds with points of coloured light, 

As they rain through them ; and bright golden globes 

Of fruit, suspended in their own green heaven ; 

And through their veined leaves and amber stems 

The flowers whose purple and translucid bowls 275 

Stand ever mantling with aerial dew. 

The drink of spirits : and it circles round. 

Like the soft waving wings of noonday dreams, 

Inspiring calm and happy thoughts, like mine. 

Now thou art thus restored. This cave is thine. 280 

Arise ! Appear ! 

\_A Spirit rises in the likeness of a winged child. 
This is my torch-bearer ; 
Who let his lamp out in old time with gazing 
On eyes from which he kindled it anew 
With love, which is as fire, sweet daughter mine. 
For such is tkat within thine own. Run, wayward, 285 
And guide this company beyond the peak 
Of Bacchic Nysa, Maenad-haunted mountain. 
And beyond Indus and its tribute rivers, 
Trampling the torrent streams and glassy lakes 
With feet unwet, unwearied, undelaying, 290 

And up the green ravine, across the vale, 
Beside the windless and crystalline pool 



116 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Where ever lies on unerasing waves 

The image of a temple, built above, 

Distinct with column, arch, and architrave, 295 

And palm-like capital, and overwrought 

And populous most with living imagery, 

Praxitelean shapes, whose marble smiles 

Fill the hushed air with everlasting love. 

It is deserted now, but once it bore 300 

Thy name, Prometheus ; there the emulous youths 

Bore to thy honour through the divine gloom 

The lamp which was thine emblem ; even as those 

Who bear the untransmitted torch of hope 

Into the grave, across the night of life, 305 

As thou hast borne it most triumphantly 

To this far goal of Time. Depart, farewell. 

Beside that temple is the destined cave. 

Scene IV. — A Forest In the Background a Cave. 

Prometheus, Asia, Panthea, Ione, and the Spirit 

OF THE Earth. 

Ione 
Sister, it is not earthly : how it glides 
Under the leaves ! how on its head there burns 310 
A light, like a green star, whose emerald beams 
Are twined with its fair hair ! how, as it moves, 
The splendour drops in flakes upon the grass ! 
Knowest thou it ? 

Panthea 

It is the delicate spirit 
That guides the earth through heaven. From afar 315 
The populous constellations call that light 
The loveliest of the planets ; and sometimes 
It floats along the spray of the salt sea. 
Or makes its chariot of a foggy cloud, 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 117 

Or walks through fields or cities while men sleep, 320 

Or o'er the mountain-tops, or down the rivers. 

Or through the green waste wilderness, as now. 

Wondering at all it sees. Before Jove reigned 

It loved our sister Asia, and it came 

Each leisure hour to drink the liquid light 325 

Out of her eyes, for which it said it thirsted 

As one bit by a dipsas, and with her 

It made its childish confidence, and told her 

All it had known or seen, for it saw much. 

Yet idly reasoned what it saw ; and called her, 330 

For whence it sprung it knew not, nor do I, 

Mother, dear mother. 

The Spirit of the Earth (running to Asia) 

Mother, dearest mother ; 
May I then talk with thee as I was wont ? 
May I then hide my eyes in thy soft arms. 
After thy looks have made them tired of joy ? 335 
May I then play beside thee the long noons. 
When work is none in the bright silent air ? 

Asia 

I love thee, gentlest being, and henceforth 

Can cherish thee unenvied ; speak, I pray : 

Thy simple talk once solaced, now delights. 340 

Spirit of the Earth 

Mother, I am grown wiser, though a child 
Cannot be wise like thee, within this day ; 
And happier too ; happier and wiser both. 
Thou knowest that toads, and snakes, and loathly 

worms. 
And venomous and malicious beasts, and boughs 345 



118 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

That bore ill berries in the woods, were ever 

An hindrance to my walks o'er the green world : 

And that, among the haunts of humankind. 

Hard-featured men, or with proud, angry looks, 

Or cold, staid gait, or false and hollow smiles, 350 

Or the dull sneer of self-loved ignorance, 

Or other such foul masks, with which ill thoughts 

Hide that fair being whom we spirits call man ; 

And women too, ugliest of all things evil, 

(Though fair, even in a world where thou art fair, 355 

When good and kind, free and sincere like thee,) 

When false or frowning made me sick at heart 

To pass them, though they slept, and I unseen. 

Well, my path lately lay through a great city 

Into the woody hills surrounding it : 360 

A sentinel was sleeping at the gate : 

When there was heard a sound, so loud it shook 

The towers amid the moonlight, yet more sweet 

Than any voice but thine, sweetest of all ; 

A long, long sound, as it would never end : 365 

And all the inhabitants leapt suddenly 

Out of their rest, and gathered in the streets, 

Looking in wonder up to heaven, while yet 

The music pealed along. I hid myself 

Within a fountain in the public square, 370 

Where I lay like the reflex of the moon 

Seen in a wave under green leaves ; and soon 

Those ugly human shapes and visages 

Of which I spoke as having wrought me pain. 

Past floating through the air, and fading still 375 

Into the winds that scattered them ; and those 

From whom they past seemed mild and lovely forms 

After some foul disguise had fallen, and all 

Were somewhat changed, and after brief surprise 



PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 119 

And greetings of delighted wonder, all 380 

Went to their sleep again : and when the dawn 
Came, wouldst thou think that toads, and snakes, and 

efts. 
Could e'er be beautiful ? yet so they were, 
And that with little change of shape or hue : 
All things had put their evil nature off : 385 

I cannot tell my joy, when o'er a lake 
Upon a drooping bough with nightshade twined, 
I saw two azure halcyons clinging downward 
And thinning one bright bunch of amber berries. 
With quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay 390 
Those lovely forms imaged as in a sky ; 
So with my thoughts full of these happy changes. 
We meet again, the happiest change of all. 

Asia 

And never will we part, till thy chaste sister 

Who guides the frozen and inconstant moon, 395 

Will look on thy more warm and equal light 

Till her heart thaw like flakes of April snow, 

And love thee. 

Spirit of the Earth 

What ! as Asia loves Prometheus ? 

Asia 

Peace, wanton, thou art yet not old enough. 

Think ye by gazing on each other's eyes 400 

To multiply your lovely selves, and fill 

With sphered fires the interlunar air ? 

Spirit of the Earth 

Nay, mother, while my sister trims her lamp 
'T is hard I should go darkling. 



120 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Asia 

Listen; look! 
IThe Spirit of the Hour enters. 

Prometheus 
We feel what thou hast heard and seen : yet speak ! 405 

Spirit of the Hour 

Soon as the sound had ceased whose thunder filled 

The abysses of the sky and the wide earth, 

There was a change : the impalpable thin air 

And the all-circling sunlight were transformed, 

As if the sense of love, dissolved in them, 410 

Had folded itself round the sphered world. 

My vision then grew clear, and I could see 

Into the mysteries of the universe. 

Dizzy as with delight I floated down, 

Winnowing the lightsome air with languid plumes, 415 

My coursers sought their birthplace in the sun. 

Where they henceforth will live exempt from toil, 

Pasturing [on] flowers of vegetable fire ; 

And where my moonlike car will stand within 

A temple, gazed upon by Phidian forms 420 

Of thee, and Asia, and the Earth, and me. 

And you fair nymphs, looking the love we feel; 

In memory of the tidings it has borne ; 

Beneath a dome fretted with graven flowers. 

Poised on twelve columns of resplendent stone, 425 

And open to the bright and liquid sky. 

Yoked to it by an amphisbaenic snake 

The likeness of those winged steeds will mock 

The flight from which they find repose. Alas, 

Whither has wandered now my partial tongue, 430 

When all remains untold which ye would hear ? 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 121 

As I have said, I floated to the earth : 

It was, as it is still, the pain of bliss 

To move, to breathe, to be. I wandering went 

Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind, 435 

And first was disappointed not to see 

Such mighty change as I had felt within. 

Expressed in outward things; but soon I looked, 

And behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked 

One with the other even as spirits do : 440 

None fawned, none trampled ; hate, disdain, or fear, 

Self-love or self-contempt, on human brows 

No more inscribed, as o'er the gate of hell, 

" All hope abandon ye who enter here ; " 

None frowned, none trembled, none with eager fear 445 

Gazed on another's eye of cold command, 

Until the subject of a tyrant's will 

Became, worse fate, the abject of his own, 

Which spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death. 

None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines 450 

Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak ; 

None, with firm sneer, trod out in his own heart 

The sparks of love and hope till there remained 

Those bitter ashes, a soul self-consumed. 

And the wretch crept a vampire among men, 455 

Infecting all with his own hideous ill ; 

None talked that common, false, cold, hollow talk 

Which makes the heart deny the yes it breathes, 

Yet question that unmeant hypocrisy 

With such a self-mistrust as has no name. 460 

And women too, frank, beautiful, and kind 

As the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew 

On the wide earth, past ; gentle, radiant forms, 

From custom's evil taint exempt and pure ; 

Speaking the wisdom once they could not think, 465 



122 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Looking emotions once they feared to feel, 

And changed to all which once they dared not be, 

Yet being now, made earth like heaven ; nor pride, 

Nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill-shame, 

The bitterest of those drops of treasured gall, 470 

Spoilt the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love. 

Thrones, altars, judgment-seats, and prisons, — wherein, 

And beside which, by wretched men were borne 

Sceptres, tiaras, swords, and chains, and tomes 

Of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance, — 475 

Were like those monstrous and barbaric shapes. 

The ghosts of a no-more-remembered fame, 

Which from their unworn obelisks, look forth 

In triumph o'er the palaces and tombs 

Of those who were their conquerors, mouldering 

round, 480 

Those imaged, to the pride of kings and priests, 
A dark yet mighty faith, a power as wide 
As is the world it wasted, and are now 
But an astonishment. Even so the tools 
And emblems of its last captivity, 485 

Amid the dwellings of the peopled earth. 
Stand, not o'erthrown, but unregarded now ; 
And those foul shapes, abhorred by god and man. 
Which, under many a name and many a form, 
Strange, savage, ghastly, dark, and execrable, 490 
Were Jupiter, the tyrant of the world ; 
And which the nations, panic-stricken, served 
With blood, and hearts broken by long hope, and 

love 
Dragged to his altars soiled and garlandless. 
And slain among men's unreclaiming tears, 495 

Flattering the thing they feared, which fear was hate, — 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 123 

Frown, mouldering fast, o'er their abandoned shrines. 
The painted veil, by those who were, called life, 
Which mimicked, as with colours idly spread. 
All men believed and hoped, is torn aside ; 500 

The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains, 
Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man: 
Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, 
Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king- 
Over himself ; just, gentle, wise : but man. 505 
Passionless ? no, yet free from guilt or pain. 
Which were, for his will made or suffered them ; 
Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves, 
From chance, and death, and mutability. 
The clogs of that which else might oversoar 510 
The loftiest star of unascended heaven, 
Pinnacled dim in the intense inane. 



ACT IV 

Scene. — A part of the Forest near the Cave of Prome- 
theus. Panthea and Ione are sleeping : they awaken 
gradually during the first Song. 

Voice of Unseen Spirits 

The pale stars are gone ! 
For the sun, their swift shepherd, 
To their folds them compelling, 
In the depths of the dawn. 
Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee 5 
Beyond his blue dwelling. 
As fauns flee the leopard. 

But where are ye ? 
[A train of dark Forms and Shadows p)(^sses by 
confusedly^ singing. 



124 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Here, oh, here : 

We bear the bier 10 

Of the Father of many a cancelled year ! 

Spectres we 

Of the dead Hours be, 
We bear Time to his tomb in eternity. 

Strew, oh, strew 15 

Hair, not yew ! 
Wet the dusty pall with tears, not dew ! 

Be the faded flowers 

Of Death's bare bowers 
Spread on the corpse of the King of Hours ! 

Haste, oh, haste ! 21 

As shades are chased. 
Trembling, by day, from heaven's blue waste, 

We melt away. 

Like dissolving spray, 25 

From the children of a diviner day, 

With the lullaby 

Of winds that die 
On the bosom of their own harmony ! 

lONE 

What dark forms were they ? 30 

Panthea 

The past Hours weak and gray, 
With the spoil which their toil 
Eaked together 
From the conquest but One could foil. 

lONE 

Have they past ? 35 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 125 

Panthea 

They have past ; 35 
They outspeeded the blast, 
While 't is said, they are fled : 

lONE 

Whither, oh, whither? 

Panthea 
To the dark, to the past, to the dead. 

Voice of Unseen Spirits 

Bright clouds float in heaven, 40 

Dew-stars gleam on earth. 
Waves assemble on ocean : 
They are gathered and driven 
By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee ! 

They shake with emotion, 45 

They dance in their mirth. 
But where are ye ? 

The pine-boughs are singing 
Old songs with new gladness, 
The billows and fountains 50 

Fresh music are flinging, 
Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea ; 
The storms mock the mountains 
With the thunder of gladness. 

But where are ye ? 55 

lONE 

What charioteers are these ? 

Panthea 

Where are their chariots ? 



126 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Semichorus of Hours 

The voice of the Spirits of Air and of Earth 
Has drawn back the figured curtain of sleep 

Which covered our being and darkened our birth 
In the deep. 

A Voice 
In the deep ? 

Semichorus II 

Oh, below the deep. 

Semichorus I 

An hundred ages we had been kept 61 

Cradled in visions of hate and care, 
And each one who waked as his brother slept, 

Found the truth — 

Semichorus II 

Worse than his visions were ! 

Semichorus I 

We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep ; 65 

We have known the voice of Love in dreams ; 
We have felt the wand of Power, and leap — 

Semichorus II 
As the billows leap in the morning beams ! 

Chorus 

Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze, 

Pierce with song heaven's silent light, 70 

Enchant the day that too swiftly flees. 
To check its flight ere the cave of night. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 127 

Once the hungry Hours were hounds 

Which chased the day like a bleeding deer, 

And it limped and stumbled with many wounds 75 
Through the nightly dells of the desert year. 

But now, oh weave the mystic measure 
Of music, and dance, and shapes of light ; 

Let the Hours, and the spirits of might and pleasure, 
Like the clouds and sunbeams, unite ! 80 

A Voice 

Unite ! 
Panthea 

See, where the Spirits of the human mind, 

Wrapt in sweet sounds, as in bright veils, approach ! 

Chorus of Spirits 

We join the throng 

Of the dance and the song. 
By the whirlwind of gladness borne along ; 85 

As the flying-fish leap 

From the Indian deep. 
And mix with the sea-birds, half asleep. 

Chorus of Hours 

Whence come ye, so wild and so fleet ? — 
For sandals of lightning are on your feet, . 90 

And your wings are soft and swift as thought, 
And your eyes are as love which is veiled not. 

Chorus of Spirits 

We come from the mind 
Of humankind. 
Which was late so dusk, and obscene, and blind ; 95 



128 PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Now 't is an ocean 
Of clear emotion, 
A heaven of serene and mighty motion. 

From that deep abyss 

Of wonder and bliss, 100 

Whose caverns are crystal palaces ; 

From those skyey towers 

Where Thought's crowned powers 
Sit watching your dance, ye happy Hours ! 

From the dim recesses 105 

Of woven caresses. 
Where lovers catch ye by your loose tresses ; 

From the azure isles, 

Where sweet Wisdom smiles, 
Delaying your ships with her siren wiles. 110 

From the temples high 

Of Man's ear and eye. 
Roofed over Sculpture and Poesy ; 

From the murmurings 

Of the unsealed springs 115 

Where Science bedews his daedal wings. 

Years after years. 

Through blood, and tears, 
And a thick hell of hatreds, and hopes, and fears. 

We waded and flew, 120 

And the islets were few 
Where the bud-blighted flowers of happiness grew. 

Our feet now, every palm. 
Are sandalled with calm. 
And the dew of our wings is a rain of balm ; 125 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 129 

And, beyond our eyes, 
The human love lies 
Which makes all it gazes on Paradise. 

Chorus of Spirits and Hours 

Then weave the web of the mystic measure ; 

From the depths of the sky and the ends of the 
earth, 130 

Come, swift Spirits of might and of pleasure, 

Fill the dance and the music of mirth, 
As the waves of a thousand streams rush by 
To an ocean of splendour and harmony ! 

Chorus of Spirits 

Our spoil is won, 135 

Our task is done. 
We are free to dive, or soar, or run ; 

Beyond and around, 

Or within the bound 
Which clips the world with darkness round. 140 

We '11 pass the eyes 

Of the starry skies 
Into the hoar deep to colonize : 

Death, Chaos, and Night, 

From the sound of our flight, 145 

Shall flee, like mist from a tempest's might. 

And Earth, Air, and Light, 

And the Spirit of Might, 
Which drives round the stars in their fiery flight ; 

And Love, Thought, and Breath, 150 

The powers that quell Death, 
Wherever we soar shall assemble beneath. 



130 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

And our singing shall build 

In the void's loose field 
A world for the Spirit of Wisdom to wield ; 155 

We will take our plan 

From the new world of man, 
And our work shall be called the Promethean. 

Chorus of Hours 

Break the dance, and scatter the song; 

Let some depart, and some remain. 160 

Semichorus I 
We, beyond heaven, are driven along : 

Semichorus II 
Us the enchantments of earth retain : 

Semichorus I 

Ceaseless, and rapid, and fierce, and free. 

With the Spirits which build a new earth and sea, 

And a heaven where yet heaven could never be. 165 

Semichorus II 

Solemn, and slow, and serene, and bright, 
Leading the Day, and outspeeding the Night, 
With the powers of a world of perfect light. 

Semichorus I 

We whirl, singing loud, round the gathering sphere. 
Till the trees, and the beasts, and the clouds appear 
From its chaos made calm by love, not fear. 171 

Semichorus II 
We encircle the ocean and mountains of earth, 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 131 

And the happy forms of its death and birth 
Change to the music of our sweet mirth. 

Chorus of Hours axd Spirits 

Break the dance, and scatter the song, 175 

Let some depart, and some remain ; 
Wherever we fly we lead along 
In leashes, like starbeams, soft yet strong, 

The clouds that are heavy with love's sweet rain. 

Panthea 
Ha ! they are gone ! 

lONE 

Yet feel you no delight 180 

From the past sweetness? 

Panthea 

As the bare green hill, 
When some soft cloud vanishes into rain. 
Laughs with a thousand drops of sunny water 
To the unpavilioned sky ! 

lONE 

Even whilst we speak 
New notes arise. What is that awful sound? 185 

Panthea 

'T is the deep music of the rolling world. 
Kindling within the strings of the waved air 
-^olian modulations. 

lONE 

Listen, too, 
How every pause is filled with under-notes, 



132 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Clear, silver, icy, keen awakening tones, 190 

Which pierce the sense, and live within the soul, 
As the sharp stars pierce winter's crystal air, 
And gaze upon themselves within the sea. 

Panthea 

But see where, through two openings in the forest 
Which hanging branches overcanopy, 195 

And where two runnels of a rivulet 
Between the close moss, violet-inwoven. 
Have made their path of melody, like sisters 
Who part with sighs that they may meet in smiles. 
Turning their dear disunion to an isle 200 

Of lovely grief, a wood of sweet sad thoughts ; 
Two visions of strange radiance float upon 
The ocean-like enchantment of strong sound, 
Which flows intenser, keener, deeper yet. 
Under the ground and through the windless air. 205 

lONE 

I see a chariot like that thinnest boat 

In which the mother of the months is borne 

By ebbing night into her western cave, 

When she upsprings from interlunar dreams ; 

O'er which is curved an orblike canopy 210 

Of gentle darkness, and the hills and woods 

Distinctly seen through that dusk airy veil. 

Regard like shapes in an enchanter's glass ; 

Its wheels are solid clouds, azure and gold. 

Such as the genii of the thunderstorm 215 

Pile on the floor of the illumined sea 

When the sun rushes under it ; they roll 

And move and grow as with an inward wind ; 

Within it sits a winged infant, white 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 133 

Its countenance, like the whiteness of bright snow, 220 

Its plumes are as feathers of sunny frost, 

Its limbs gleam white, through the wind-flowing folds 

Of its white robe, woof of ethereal pearl. 

Its hair is white, the brightness of white light 

Scattered in strings ; yet its two eyes are heavens 225 

Of liquid darkness, which the deity 

Within seems pouring, as a storm is poured 

From jagged clouds, out of their arrowy lashes, 

Tempering the cold and radiant air around. 

With fire that is not brightness ; in its hand 230 

It sways a quivering moonbeam, from whose point 

A guiding power directs the chariot's prow 

Over its wheeled clouds, which as they roll 

Over the grass, and flowers, and waves, wake sounds, 

Sweet as a singing rain of silver dew. 235 

Panthea 

And from the other opening in the wood 

Rushes, with loud and whirlwind harmony, 

A sphere, which is as many thousand spheres, 

Solid as crystal, yet through all its mass 

Flow, as through empty space, music and light : 240 

Ten thousand orbs involving and involved. 

Purple and azure, white, green, and golden. 

Sphere within sphere ; and every space between 

Peopled with unimaginable shapes. 

Such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deep, 245 

Yet each intertranspicuous, and they whirl 

Over each other with a thousand motions. 

Upon a thousand sightless axles spinning. 

And with the force of self -destroying swiftness. 

Intensely, slowly, solemnly roll on, 250 

Kindling with mingled sounds, and many tones. 



134 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Intelligible words and music wild. 

With mighty whirl the multitudinous orb 

Grinds the bright brook into an azure mist 

Of elemental subtlety, like light ; 255 

And the wild odour of the forest flowers, 

The music of the living grass and air. 

The emerald light of leaf-entangled beams. 

Round its intense yet self-conflicting speed 

Seem kneaded into one aerial mass 260 

Which drowns the sense. Within the orb itself, 

Pillowed upon its alabaster arms. 

Like to a child o'erwearied with sweet toil. 

On its own folded wings and wavy hair, 

The Spirit of the Earth is laid asleep, 265 

And you can see its little lips are moving. 

Amid the changing light of their own smiles. 

Like one who talks of what he loves in dream. 

lOKE 

'T is only mocking the orb's harmony. 

Panthea 

And from a star upon its forehead, shoot, 270 

Like swords of azure fire, or golden spears 
With tyrant-quelling myrtle overtwined. 
Embleming heaven and earth united now. 
Vast beams like spokes of some invisible wheel 274 
Which whirl as the orb whirls, swifter than thought, 
Filling the abyss with sun-like lightnings, 
And perpendicular now, and now transverse. 
Pierce the dark soil, and as they pierce and pass. 
Make bare the secrets of the earth's deep heart ; 
Infinite mine of adamant and gold, 280 

Valueless stones, and unimagined gems. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 135 

And caverns on crystalline columns poised 

With vegetable silver overspread ; 

Wells of unf athomed fire, and water-springs 

Whence the great sea even as a child is fed, 285 

Whose vapours clothe earth's monarch mountain-tops 

With kingly, ermine snow. The beams flash on. 

And make appear the melancholy ruins 

Of cancelled cycles : anchors, beaks of ships ; 

Planks turned to marble ; quivers, helms, and spears, 

And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels 291 

Of scythed chariots, and the emblazonry 

Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts. 

Round which Death laughed, sepulchred emblems 

Of dead destruction, ruin within ruin ! 295 

The wrecks beside of many a city vast. 

Whose population which the earth grew over 

Was mortal, but not human ; see, they lie. 

Their monstrous works, and uncouth skeletons. 

Their statues, homes and fanes ; prodigious shapes 300 

Huddled in gray annihilation, split. 

Jammed in the hard, black deep ; and, over these, 

The anatomies of unknown winged things. 

And fishes which were isles of living scale. 

And serpents, bony chains, twisted around 305 

The iron crags, or within heaps of dust 

To which the tortuous strength of their last pangs 

Had crushed the iron crags ; and over these 

The jagged alligator, and the might 

Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once 310 

Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores, 

And weed-overgrown continents of earth. 

Increased and multiplied like summer worms 

On an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe 

Wrapt deluge round it like a cloke, and they 315 



136 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Yelled, gasped, and were abolished; or some God 
Whose throne was in a comet, past, and cried, 
Be not ! And like my words they were no more. 

The Earth 

The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness ! 

The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness, 320 
The vaporous exultation not to be confined ! 

Ha ! ha ! the animation of delight 

Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light. 
And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind ! 

The Moon 

Brother mine, calm wanderer, 325 

Happy globe of land and air, 
Some Spirit is darted like a beam from thee, 

Which penetrates my frozen frame, 

And passes with the warmth of flame. 
With love, and odour, and deep melody 330 

Through me, through me ! 

The Earth 

Ha ! ha ! the caverns of my hollow mountains. 
My cloven fire-crags, sound-exulting fountains. 

Laugh with a vast and inextinguishable laughter. 
The oceans, and the deserts, and the abysses, 335 
And the deep air's unmeasured wildernesses. 

Answer from all their clouds and billows, echoing 
after. 

They cry aloud as I do : Sceptred curse. 
Who all our green and azure universe 
Threatenedst to muffle round with black destruction, 
sending 340 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 137 

A solid cloud to rain hot thunder-stones, 
And splinter and knead down my children's bones, 
All I bring forth, to one void mass battering and 
blending ; 

Until each crag-like tower, and storied column, 

Palace, and obelisk, and temple solemn, 345 

My imperial mountains crowned with cloud, and snow, 
and fire ; 

My sea-like forests, every blade and blossom . 

Which finds a grave or cradle in my bosom. 
Were stamped by thy strong hate into a lifeless mire. 

How art thou sunk, withdrawn, covered, drunk 
up 350 

By thirsty nothing, as the brackish cup 
Drained by a desert-troop, a little drop for all ; 
And from beneath, around, within, above. 
Filling thy void annihilation, love 
Bursts in like light on caves cloven by the thunder- 
ball ! 355 

The Moon 

The snow upon my lifeless mountains 

Is loosened into living fountains. 
My solid oceans flow, and sing, and shine : 

A spirit from my heart bursts forth, 

It clothes with unexpected birth 360 

My cold bare bosom : Oh, it must be thine 
On mine, on mine ! 

Gazing on thee, I feel, I know, 
Green stalks burst forth, and bright flowers 
grow, 
And living shapes upon my bosom move : 365 



138 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Music is in the sea and air, 
Winged clouds soar here and there, 
Dark with the rain new buds are dreaming of : 
'T is love, all love ! 

The Earth 

It interpenetrates my granite mass, 370 

Through tangled roots and trodden clay doth pass, 

Into the utmost leaves and delicatest flowers ; 
Upon the winds, among the clouds 't is spread : 
It wakes a life in the forgotten dead, — 

They breathe a spirit up from their obscurest bowers. 

And like a storm bursting its cloudy prison 376 
With thunder and with whirlwind, has arisen 

Out of the lampless caves of unimagined being : 

With earthquake shock and swiftness making shiver 
Thought's stagnant chaos, unremoved for ever, 380 

Till hate, and fear, and pain, light- vanquished shadows, 
fleeing, 

Leave Man, who was a many-sided mirror, 
Which could distort to many a shade of error, 

This true fair world of things, a sea reflecting love ; 
Which over all his kind as the sun's heaven 385 
Gliding o'er ocean, smooth, serene, and even 

Darting from starry depths radiance and life, doth 
move: 

Leave Man, even as a leprous child is left, 
Who follows a sick beast to some warm cleft 
Of rocks, through which the might of healing springs 
is poured, — 390 

Then when it wanders home with rosy smile, 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 139 

Unconscious, and its mother fears awhile 
It is a spirit, then, weeps on her child restored : 

Man, oh, not men ! a chain of linked thought, 

Of love and might to be divided not, 395 

Compelling the elements with adamantine stress ; 

As the sun rules, even with a tyrant's gaze, 

The unquiet republic of the maze 
Of planets, struggling fierce towards heaven's free 
wilderness : 

Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul, 400 

Whose nature is its own divine control. 
Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea ; 

Familiar acts are beautiful through love ; 

Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove 
Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle they 
could be ! 405 

His will, with all mean passions, bad delights, 
And selfish cares, its trembling satellites, 
A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey. 
Is as a tempest-winged ship, whose helm 
Love rules through waves which dare not over- 
whelm, 410 
Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sovereign 
sway. 

All things confess his strength. Through the cold 

mass 
Of marble and of colour his dreams pass ; 
Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their 

children wear ; 
Language is a perpetual orphic song, 415 



140 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Which rules with daedal harmony a throng 
Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shape- 
less were. 

The lightning is his slave ; heaven's utmost deep 

Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep 
They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on ! 420 

The tempest is his steed, he strides the air ; 

And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare. 
Heaven, hast thou secrets? Man unveils me; I have 
none. 

The Moon 

The shadow of white death has past 

From my path in heaven at last, 425 

A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep ; 

And through my newly-woven bowers. 

Wander happy paramours. 
Less mighty, but as mild as those who keep 

Thy vales more deep. 430 

The Earth 

As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold 
A half infrozen dew-globe, green, and gold. 

And crystalline, till it becomes a winged mist. 
And wanders up the vault of the blue day. 
Outlives the noon, and on the sun's last ray 435 

Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst. 

The Moon 

Thou art folded, thou art lying 
In the light which is undying 
Of thine own joy, and heaven's smile divine ; 
All suns and constellations shower 440 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 141 

On thee a light, a life, a power 
Which doth array thy spear ; thou pourest thine 
On mine, on mine ! 

The Earth 

I spin beneath my pyramid of night, 

Which points into the heavens, dreaming delight, 445 
Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep ; 

As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing, 

Under the shadow of his beauty lying. 

Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth 

doth keep. 

The Moon 

As in the soft and sweet eclipse, 450 

When soul meets soul on lovers' lips. 
High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are 
dull; 
So when thy shadow falls on me. 
Then am I mute and still, by thee 
Covered ; of thy love, Orb most beautiful, 455 
Full, oh, too full! 

Thou art speeding round the sun, 

Brightest world of many a one ; 

Green and azure sphere which shinest 

With a light which is divinest 460 

Among all the lamps of heaven 

To whom life and light is given. 

I, thy crystal paramour. 

Borne beside thee by a power 

Like the polar paradise, 465 

Magnet-like, of lovers' eyes ; 

I, a most enamoured maiden 

Whose weak brain is overladen 



142 PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 

With the pleasure of her love, 

Maniac-like around thee move 470 

Gazing, an insatiate bride. 

On thy form from every side 

Like a Maenad, round the cup 

Which Agave lifted up 

In the weird Cadmean forests. 475 

Brother, wheresoe'er thou soarest 

I must hurry, whirl and follow 

Through the heavens wide and hollow, 

Sheltered by the warm embrace 

Of thy soul from hungry space, 480 

Drinking from thy sense and sight 

Beauty, majesty, and might, 

As a lover or cameleon 

Grows like what it looks upon ; 

As a violet's gentle eye 485 

Gazes on the azure sky 
Until its hue grows like what it beholds, 

As a gray and watery mist 

Glows like solid amethyst 
Athwart the western mountain it enfolds, 490 

When the sunset sleeps 
Upon its snow. 

The Earth 

And the weak day weeps 
That it should be so. 
O gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight 495 

Falls on me like thy clear and tender light 
Soothing the seaman, borne the summer night 

Through isles for ever calm ; 
O gentle Moon, thy crystal accents pierce 
The caverns of my pride's deep universe, 500 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 143 

Charming the tiger joy, whose tramplings fierce 
Made wounds which need thy balm. 

Panthea 

I rise as from a bath of sparkling water, 
A bath of azure light, among dark rocks, 
Out of the stream of sound. 

lONE 

Ah mje ! sweet sister, 505 
The stream of sound has ebbed away from us, 
And you pretend to rise out of its wave. 
Because your words fall like the clear, soft dew 
Shaken from a bathing wood-nymph's limbs and hair. 

Panthea 

Peace ! peace ! A mighty Power, which is as dark- 
ness, 510 
Is rising out of Earth, and from the sky 
Is showered like night, and from within the air 
Bursts, like eclipse which had been gathered up 
Into the pores of sunlight : the bright visions. 
Wherein the singing spirits rode and shone, 515 
Gleam like pale meteors through a watery night. 

lONE 

There is a sense of words upon mine ear. 

Panthea 
An universal sound like words : Oh, list ! 

Demogorgon 

Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul. 

Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies, 520 



144 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Beautiful orb ! gathering as thou dost roll 

The love which paves thy path along the skies : 

The Earth 
I hear : I am as a drop of dew that dies. 

Demogorgon 

Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth 

With wonder, as it gazes upon thee ; 525 

Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift 
birth 
Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony : 

The Moon 
I hear : I am a leaf shaken by thee ! 

Demogorgon 

Ye kings of suns and stars ! Daemons and Gods, 
Ethereal Dominations ! who possess 530 

Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes 

Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness : 

A Voice from above 
Our great Republic hears ; we are blest, and bless. 

Demogorgon 

Ye happy dead ! whom beams of brightest verse 
Are clouds to hide, not colours to portray, 535 

Whether your nature is that universe 
Which once ye saw and suffered — 

A Voice from beneath 

Or as they 
Whom we have left, we change and pass away. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 146 

Demogorgon 

Ye elemental Genii, who have homes 

From man's high mind even to the central stone 540 
Of sullen lead ; from Heaven's star-fretted domes 

To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on : 

A Confused Voice 
We hear : thy words waken Oblivion. 

Demogorgon 

Spirits, whose homes are flesh: ye beasts and birds, 
Ye worms, and fish ; ye living leaves and buds ; 545 

Lightning and wind ; and ye untameable herds. 
Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes : 

A Voice 
Thy voice to us is wind among still woods. 

Demogorgon 

Man, who wert once a despot and a slave ; 

A dupe and a deceiver ; a decay ; 550 

A traveller from the cradle to the grave 

Through the dim night of this immortal day : 

All 
Speak ! thy strong words may never pass away. 

Demogorgon 

This is the day, which down the void abysm 
At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despot- 
ism, 555 
And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep: 
Love, from its awful throne of patient power 
Li the wise heart, from the last giddy hour 



146 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 

Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep, 
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs 560 

And folds over the world its healing wings. 

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, 
These are the seals of that most firm assurance 

Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength; 
And if, with infirm hand. Eternity, 565 

Mother of many acts and hours, should free 

The serpent that would clasp her with his length, 
These are the spells by which to re-assume 
An empire o'er the disentangled doom. 

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite ; 570 

To forgive wrongs darker than death or night ; 

To defy Power, which seems omnipotent ; 
To love, and bear ; to hope till Hope creates 
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates ; 

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; 575 

This, like thy glory. Titan, is to be 
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free ; 
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory ! 



TO THE MOON 147 

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS 

Tell me, thou star, whose wings of light 
Speed thee in thy fiery flight. 
In what cavern of the night 

Will thy pinions close now? 

Tell me, moon, thou pale and gray 5 

Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way. 
In what depth of night or day 
Seekest thou repose now? 

Weary wind, who wanderest 
Like the world's rejected guest, 10 

Hast thou still some secret nest 
On the tree or billow? 

1820. 

THE WANING MOON 

And like a dying lady, lean and pale. 
Who totters forth, wrapt in a gauzy veil, 
Out of her chamber, led by the insane 
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain, 
The moon arose up in the murky East, 5 

A white and shapeless mass. 
1820. 

TO THE MOON 

Art thou pale for weariness 
Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, 

Wandering companionless 
Among the stars that have a different birth, — 
And ever changing, like a joyless eye 5 

That finds no object worth its constancy? 
1820. 



148 SONG 



GOOD NIGHT 



Good night? ah, no ; the hour is ill 
Which severs those it should unite ; 
Let us remain together still, 
Then it will be good night. 

How can I call the lone night good, 5 

Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight ? 
Be it not said, thought, understood. 
Then it will be good night. 

To hearts which near each other move 

From evening close to morning light 10 

The night is good ; because, my love. 
They never say good night. 



1820. 



SONG 

Rarely, rarely, comest thou. 

Spirit of Delight ! 
Wherefore hast thou left me now 

Many a day and night ? 
Many a weary night and day 5 

'T is since thou art fled away. 

How shall ever one like me 

Win thee back again ? 
With the joyous and the free 

Thou wilt scoff at pain. 10 

Spirit false ! thou hast forgot 
All but those who need thee not. 



SONG 149 

As a lizard with the shade 

Of a trembling leaf, 
Thou with sorrow art dismayed ; 15 

Even the sighs of grief 
Reproach thee, that thou art not near. 
And reproach thou wilt not hear. 

Let me set my mournful ditty 

To a merry measure : 20 

Thou wilt never come for pity, 

Thou wilt come for pleasure ; 
Pity then will cut away 
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay. 

I love all that thou lovest, 25 

Spirit of Delight ! 
The fresh Earth in new leaves drest, 

And the starry night ; 
Autumn evening, and the morn 
When the golden mists are born. 30 

I love snow, and all the forms 

Of the radiant frost ; 
I love waves, and winds, and storms, 

Everything almost 
Which is Nature's, and may be 35 

Untainted by man's misery. 

I love tranquil solitude. 

And such society 
As is quiet, wise, and good ; 

Between thee and me 40 

What difference ? But thou dost possess 
The things I seek, not love them less. 



150 SONG OF PROSERPINE 

I love Love — though he has wings, 

And like light can flee, 
But, above all other things, 45 

Spirit, I love thee — 
Thou art love and life ! O come, 
Make once more my heart thy home! 

1820. 



TO 



I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, — 

Thou needest not fear mine ; 
My spirit is too deeply laden 

Ever to burthen thine. 

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, — 5 

Thou needest not fear mine; 
Innocent is the heart's devotion 

With which I worship thine. 

1820. 



SONG OF PROSERPINE 

WHILST GATHERING FLOWERS ON THE PLAIN OF ENNA 

Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth, 
Thou from whose immortal bosom 

Gods, and men, and beasts have birth. 
Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom. 

Breathe thine influence most divine 

On thine own child, Proserpine. 

If with mists of evening dew 

Thou dost nourish these young flowers 



AUTUMN 151 

Till they grow, in scent and hue 

Fairest children of the Hours, 10 

Breathe thine influence most divine 
On thine own child, Proserpine. 
1820. 

AUTUMN 

A DIRGE 

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing. 
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying ; 

And the year 
On the earth, her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, 
Is lying. 5 

Come, months, come away, 

From November to May, 

In your saddest array ; 

Follow the bier 

Of the dead cold year, 10 

And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. 

The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling, 
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling 

For the year ; 
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each 
gone 15 

To his dwelling. 
Come, months, come away ; 
Put on white, black, and gray ; 
Let your light sisters play — 
Ye, follow the bier 20 

Of the dead cold year, 
And make her grave green with tear on tear. 
1820. 



152 THE QUESTION 

THE QUESTION 

I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, 
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, 

And gentle odours led my steps astray, 
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring 

Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay 5 

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling 

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, 

But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream. 

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets ; 

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth ; 10 

The constellated flower that never sets ; 

Faint oxlips ; tender bluebells, at whose birth 
The sod scarce heaved ; and that tall flower that wets — 

Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth — 
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, 15 

When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears. 

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, 

Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may. 

And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine 
Was the bright dew yet drained not by the Day ; 20 

And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, 

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray ; 

And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, 

Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. 

And nearer to the river's trembling edge 25 

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with 
white ; 

And starry river-buds among the sedge ; 
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, 



HYMN OF APOLLO 153 

Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge 

With moonlight beams of their own watery light ; 30 
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green 
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen. 

Methought that of these visionary flowers 

I made a nosegay, bound in such a way 
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers 35 

Were mingled or opposed, the like array 
Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours 

Within my hand, — and then, elate and gay, 
I hastened to the spot whence I had come. 
That I might there present it ! — O, to whom ? 40 

1820. 

HYMN OF APOLLO 

The sleepless Hours who watch me, as I lie 
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries 

From the broad moonlight of the sky. 

Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes, — 

Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn, 5 

Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. 

Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome, 
I walk over the mountains and the waves, 

Leaving my robe upon the ocean-foam ; 

My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves 10 

Are filled with my bright presence ; and the air 

Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare. 

The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill 
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day ; 

All men who do or even imagine ill 16 

Fly me, and from the glory of my ray 



154 HYMN OF PAN 

Grood minds and open actions take new might, 
Until diminished by the reign of night. 

I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers, 

, With their sethereal colours ; the Moon's globe 20 
And the pure stars in their eternal bowers 

Are cinctured with my power as with a robe ; 
Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine 
Are portions of one power, which is mine. 

I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven ; 25 

Then with unwilling steps I wander down 

Into the clouds of the Atlantic even ; 

For grief that I depart they weep and frown : 

What look is more delightful than the smile 

With which I soothe them from the western isle? 30 

I am the eye with which the universe 
Beholds itself and knows itself divine ; 

All harmony of instrument or verse. 
All prophecy, all medicine, are mine. 

All light of art or nature ; — to my song 35 

Victory and praise in their own right belong. 
1820. 

HYMN OF PAN 

From the forests and highlands 

We come, we come ; 
From the river-girt islands. 

Where loud waves are dumb 

Listening to my sweet pipings. 5 

The wind in the reeds and the rushes. 

The bees on the bells of thyme, 



HYMN OF PAN 155 

The birds on the myrtle-bushes, 
The eicale above in the lime, 
And the lizards below in the grass, 10 

Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, 
Listening to my sweet pipings. 

Liquid Peneus was flowing, 

And all dark Tempe lay 
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing 15 

The light of the dying day. 
Speeded by my sweet pipings. 
The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, 

And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, 
To the edge of the moist river-lawns, 20 

And the brink of the dewy caves. 
And all that did then attend and follow. 
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo, 
With envy of my sweet pipings. 

I sang of the dancing stars, 25 

I sang of the daedal Earth, 
And of Heaven — and the giant wars, 

And Love, and Death, and Birth ; — 
And then I changed my pipings, — 
Singing how down the vale of Maenalus 30 

I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed : 
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus ! 

It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed : 
All wept, as I think both ye now would. 
If envy or age had not frozen your blood, 35 

At the sorrow of my sweet pipings. 
1820. 



156 ABETUUSA 



ARETHUSA 



Arethusa arose 

From her couch of snows 
In the Acroceraiinian mountains, — 

From cloud and from crag, 

With many a jag, 5 

Shepherding her bright fountains. 

She leapt down the rocks, 

With her rainbow locks 
Streaming among the streams ; 

Her steps paved with green 10 

The downward ravine 
Which slopes to the western gleams : 

And gliding and springing. 

She went, ever singing 
In murmurs as soft as sleep. 15 

The Earth seemed to love her, 

And Heaven smiled above her. 
As she lingered towards the deep. 

Then Alpheus bold. 

On his glacier cold, 20 

With his trident the mountains strook ; 

And opened a chasm 

In the rocks ; — with the spasm 
All Erymanthus shook. 

And the black south wind 25 

It concealed behind 
The urns of the silent snow, 

And earthquake and thunder 

Did render in sunder 
The bars of the springs below : 30 

The beard and the hair 

Of the river-god were 



ARETHUSA 157 

Seen through the torrent's sweep, 

As he followed the light 

Of the fleet nymph's flight 35 

To the brink of the Dorian deep. 

" O save me ! O guide me, 

And bid the deep hide me, 
For he grasps me now by the hair ! " 

The loud Ocean heard, 40 

To its blue depth stirred. 
And divided at her prayer ; 

And under the water 

The Earth's white daughter 
Fled like a sunny beam ; 45 

Behind her descended 

Her billows, unblended 
With the brackish Dorian stream : 

Like a gloomy stain 

On the emerald main 50 

Alpheus rushed behind, — 

As an eagle pursuing 

A dove to its ruin 
Down the streams of the cloudy wind. 

Under the bowers 56 

Where the Ocean Powers 
Sit on their pearled thrones ; 

Through the coral woods 

Of the weltering floods ; 
Over heaps of unvalued stones ; 60 

Through the dim beams 

Which amid the streams 
Weave a network of coloured light ; 

And under the caves 

Where the shadowy waves 65 



168 THE CLOUD 

Are as green as the forest's night: 

Outspeeding the shark, 

And the sword-fish dark, 
Under the ocean foam, 

And up through the rifts 70 

Of the mountain -clifts 
They passed to their Dorian home. 

And now from their fountains 

In Enna's mountains, 
Down one vale where the morning basks, 75 

Like friends once parted 

Grown single-hearted, 
They ply their watery tasks. 

At sunrise they leap 

From their cradles steep 80 

In the cave of the shelving hill ; 

At noontide they flow 

Through the woods below. 
And the meadows of asphodel ; 

And at night they sleep 85 

In the rocking deep 
Beneath the Ortygian shore ; — 

Like spirits that lie 

In the azure sky 
When they love but live no more. 90 

1820. 

THE CLOUD 

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers. 

From the seas and the streams ; 
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 

In their noonday dreams. 



THE CLOUD 159 

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 5 

The sweet buds every one, 
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 

As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 

And whiten the green plains under, 10 

And then again I dissolve it in rain, 

And laugh as I pass in thunder. 

I sift the snow on the mountains below. 

And their great pines groan aghast ; 
And all the night 'tis my pillow white, 15 

While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers, 

Lightning my pilot sits ; 
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, 

It struggles and howls at fits ; 20 

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, 

This pilot is guiding me. 
Lured by the love of the genii that move 

In the depths of the purple sea ; 
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, 26 

Over the lakes and the plains. 
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, 

The Spirit he loves remains ; 
And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile. 

Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 30 

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 
And his burning plumes outspread. 

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack. 

When the morning-star shines dead ; 

As on the jag of a mountain crag, 35 

Which an earthquake rocks and swings. 



160 THE CLOUD 

An eagle allt one moment may sit 

In the light of its golden wings. 
And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, 

Its ardours of rest and of love, 40 

And the crimson pall of eve may fall 

From the depth of heaven above, 
With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, 

As still as a brooding dove. 

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, 45 

Whom mortals call the moon, 
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, 

By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 

Which only the angels hear, 50 

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 

The stars peep behind her and peer ; 
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, 

Like a swarm of golden bees, 
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 55 

Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, 
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 

Are each paved with the moon and these. 

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone. 

And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ; 60 

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, 

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, 

Over a torrent sea, 
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, 65 

The mountains its columns be. 
The triumphal arch through which I march, 

With hurricane, fire, and snow. 



TO A SEYLAEK 161 

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, 
Is the million-coloured bow ; 70 

The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, 

While the moist earth was laughing below. 

I am the daughter of earth and water. 

And the nursling of the sky ; 
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 75 

I change, but I cannot die. 
For after the rain, when with never a stain 

The pavilion of heaven is bare, 
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams. 

Build up the blue dome of air, 80 

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 

And out of the caverns of rain. 
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 

I arise and unbuild it again. 
1820. 

TO A SKYLARK 

Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 

Bird thou never wert. 
That from heaven, or near it, 

Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art^ 6 

Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest 
Like a cloud of fire ; 

The blue deep thou wingest, 9 

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 

In the golden lightning 
Of the sunken sun. 



) 

162 TO A SKYLARK 

O'er which clouds are bright'ning, 
Thou dost float and run ; 
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 15 

The pale purple even 

Melts around thy flight ; 
Like a star of heaven, 

In the broad daylight 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, 20 

Keen as are the arrows 
Of that silver sphere 
Whose intense lamp narrows 
In the white dawn clear. 
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 25 

All the earth and air 

With thy voice is loud, 
As, when night is bare. 

From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is over- 
flowed. 30 

What thou art we know not ; 

What is most like thee ? 
From rainbow clouds there flow not 
Drops so bright to see. 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 35 

Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thought. 
Singing hymns unbidden. 

Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 40 



TO A SKYLARK 163 

Like a high-born maiden 

In a palace tower, 
Soothing her love-laden 

Soul in secret hour 44 

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower : 

Like a glow-worm golden 

In a dell of dew. 
Scattering unbeholden 

Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from 
the view : 50 

Like a rose embowered 

In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflowered, 

Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged 
thieves. 55 

Sound of vernal showers 

On the twinkling grass. 
Rain-awakened flowers, — 

All that ever was 59 

Joyous, and clear, and fresh, — thy music doth surpass. 

Teach us, sprite or bird. 

What sweet thoughts are thine : 
I have never heard 
Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 65 

Chorus Hymenaeal, 
Or triumphal chaunt. 



164 TO A SKYLARK 

Matched with thine would be all 
But an empty vaunt, — 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 70 

What objects are the fountains 

Of thy happy strain ? 
What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 

What shapes of sky or plain ? 74 

What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain ? 

With thy clear keen joyance 

Languor cannot be : 
Shadow of annoyance 

Never came near thee : 
Thou lovest ; but ne*er knew love's sad satiety. 80 

Waking or asleep, 

Thou of death must deem 
Things more true and deep 

Than we mortals dream, 84 

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? 

We look before and after, 

And pine for what is not : 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught ; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest 

thought. 90 

Yet if we could scorn 

Hate, and pride, and fear ; 
If we were things born 

Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 95 



ODE TO LIBERTY 165 

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound, 
Better than all treasures 

That in books are found, 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 100 

Teach me half the gladness 

That thy brain must know, 
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow, 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 105 
1820. 

ODE TO LIBERTY 

Yet, Freedom, yet thy banner, torn but flying. 

Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind. — Btron. 



A GLORIOUS people vibrated again 

The lightning of the nations : Liberty, 
From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, 

Scattering contagious fire into the sky. 
Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, 5 
And, in the rapid plumes of song. 
Clothed itself, sublime and strong ; 
As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, 
Hovering inverse o'er its accustomed prey ; 

Till from its station in the heaven of fame 10 
The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray 
Of the remotest sphere of living flame 
Which paves the void, was from behind it flung. 

As foam from a ship's swiftness ; when there 

came 
A voice out of the deep : I will record the same. — 



166 QBE TO LIBERTY 

II 

" The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth ; 16 

The burning stars of the abyss were hurled 
Into the depths of heaven. The daedal earthy 

That island in the ocean of the world, 
Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air ; 20 

But this divinest universe 
Was yet a chaos and a curse, 
For thou wert not : but power from worst producing 
worse. 
The spirit of the beasts was kindled there. 

And of the birds, and of the watery forms, 25 
And there was war among them, and despair 
Within them, raging without truce or terms : 
The bosom of their violated nurse 

Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms 

on worms. 
And men on men ; each heart was as a hell of 
storms. 30 

III 

*' Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied 

His generations under the pavilion 
Of the Sun's throne : palace and pyramid. 

Temple and prison, to many a swarming million 
Were as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. 35* 
This human living multitude 
Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude. 
For thou wert not ; but o'er the populous solitude,, 
Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves^ 

Hung tyranny ; beneath, sate deified 40 

The sister-pest, congregator of slaves ; 
Into the shadow of her pinions wide, 



OBE TO LIBERTY 167 

AnarcBs and priests, who feed on gold and blood, 
Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, 44 
Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. 

IV 

" The nodding promontories, and blue isles. 

And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves 
Of Greece basked glorious in the open smiles 

Of favouring heaven ; from their enchanted caves 
Prophetic echoes flung dim melody 50 

On the unapprehensive wild. 
The vine, the corn, the olive mild, 
Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled ; 
And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, 

Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, 

Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, 56 

Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein 

Of Parian stone; and, yet a speechless child, 

Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain 

Her lidless eyes for thee; when o'er the -^gean 

main 60 



" Athens arose : a city such as vision 

Builds from the purple crags and silver towers 
Of battlemented cloud, as in derision 

Of kingiiest masonry : the ocean-floors 
Pave it ; the evening sky pavilions it ; 65 

Its portals are inhabited 
By thunder-zoned winds, each head 
Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded, 
A divine work I Athens diviner yet 

Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will 70 
Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set ; 
For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill 



168 ODE TO LIBERTY 

Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead 
In marble immortality, that hill 
Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. 

VI 

*' Within the surface of Time's fleeting river 76 

Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay 
Immovably unquiet, and for ever 

It trembles, but it cannot pass away ! 
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder 80 

With an earth- awakening blast 
Through the caverns of the past ; 
Religion veils her eyes ; Oppression sinks aghast : 
A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, 

Which soars where expectation never flew, 85 
Rending the veil of space and time asunder I 

One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew ; 
One sun illumines heaven ; one spirit vast 

With life and love makes chaos ever new, — 89 
As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. 

VII 

*' Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, 

Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmsean Maenad, 
She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest 

From that elysian food was yet unweaned ; 
And many a deed of terrible uprightness 95 

By thy sweet love was sanctified ; 
And in thy smile, and by thy side. 
Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died. 

But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness, 
And gold profaned thy capitolian throne, 100 

Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness, 
The senate of the tyrants : they sunk prone 



QBE TO LIBERTY 169 

Slaves of one tyrant. Palatinus sighed 
Faint echoes of Ionian song : that tone 
Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown. 105 

VIII 

'' From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, 
Or piny promontory of the Arctic main. 
Or utmost islet inaccessible, 

Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, 
Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, 110 
And every Naiad's ice-cold urn. 
To talk in echoes sad and stern. 
Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn? 
For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks 
Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's 
sleep. 115 

What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks 
Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not 
weep. 
When from its sea of death to kill and burn. 
The Galilean serpent forth did creep. 
And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. 

IX 

"A thousand years the Earth cried, Where art thou? 

And then the shadow of thy coming fell 
On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow : 

And many a warrior-peopled citadel. 
Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep, 125 
Arose in sacred Italy, 
Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea 
Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned 
majesty ; 
That multitudinous anarchy did sweep 

And burst around their walls like idle foam, 130 



170 ODE TO LIBEBTY 

Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep, 
Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb 
Dissonant arms ; and Art, which cannot die, 
With divine wand traced on our earthly home 
Fit imagery to pave heaven's everlasting dome. 135 



" Thou huntress swifter than the Moon ! thou terror 
Of the world's wolves ! thou bearer of the quiver, 
Whose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-winged Error, 

As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever 
In the calm regions of the orient day ! 140 

Luther caught thy wakening glance : 
Like lightning from his leaden lance 
Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance 

In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay ; 144 

And England's prophets hailed thee as their 
queen. 
In songs whose music cannot pass away. 
Though it must flow for ever : not unseen 
Before the spirit-sighted countenance 

Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene 149 
Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. 

XI 

" The eager hours and unreluctant years 

As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood. 
Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears, 

Darkening each other with their multitude. 
And cried aloud, Liberty ! Indignation 155 

Answered Pity from her cave ; 
Death grew pale within the grave. 
And Desolation howled to the destroyer, Save ! 
When, like heaven's sun girt by the exhalation 



ODE TO LIBERTY 171 

Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise, 160 
Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation 

Like shadows : as if day had cloven the skies 
At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave, 
Men started, staggering with a glad surprise. 
Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. 165 

XII 

" Thou heaven of earth ! what spells could pall thee 
then. 
In ominous eclipse ? A thousand years, 
Bred from the slime of deep oppression's den, 

Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears. 
Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away ; 170 
How like Bacchanals of blood, 
Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood 
Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's mitred brood ! 
When one, like them, but mightier far than they. 

The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers, 175 
Rose : armies mingled in obscure array, 

Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred 
bowers 
Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued. 
Rests with those dead but unforgotten hours. 
Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral 
towers. 180 

XIII 

" England yet sleeps : was she not called of old ? 

Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder 
Vesuvius wakens ^tna, and the cold 

Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder: 
O'er the lit waves every JEolian isle 185 

From Pitheciisa to Pelorus 
Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus : 



172 ODE TO LIBERTY 

They cry, Be dim, ye lamps of heaven suspended 
o'er us ! 
Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile 
And they dissolve ; but Spain's were links of 
steel, 
Till bit to dust by virtue's keenest file. 191 

Twins of a single destiny ! appeal 
To the eternal years enthroned before us, 
In the dim West, impress us from a seal, 
All ye have thought and done ! Time cannot dare 
conceal. 195 

XIV 

" Tomb of Arminius ! render up thy dead, 

Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, 
His soul may stream over the tyrant's head ! 

Thy victory shall be his epitaph ! 
Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine, 200 

King-deluded Germany, 
His dead spirit lives in thee. 
Why do we fear or hope ? thou art already free ! 
And thou, lost paradise of this divine 

And glorious world ! thou flowery wilderness ! 205 
Thou island of eternity ! thou shrine 

Where desolation, clothed with loveliness. 
Worships the thing thou wert ! O Italy, 

Gather thy blood into thy heart ; repress 209 

The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces ! 

XV 

" O that the free would stamp the impious name 
Of King into the dust ; or write it there. 

So that this blot upon the page of fame 

Were as a serpent's path, which the light air 



OLE TO LIBERTY 173 

Erases, and the fiat sands close behind ! 215 

Ye the oracle have heard : 
Lift the victory-flashing sword, 
And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word, 
Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind 

Into a mass, irrefragably firm 220 

The axes and the rods which awe mankind ; 
The sound has poison in it ; 't is the sperm 
Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred ; 
Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term, 224 

To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm. 

XVI 

" O that the wise from their bright minds would kindle 

Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, 
That the pale name of Priest might shrink and 
dwindle 
Into the hell from which it first was hurled, 
A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure ; 230 

Till human thoughts might kneel alone, 
Each before the judgment-throne 
Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown ! 
O that the words which make the thoughts obscure 
From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering 
dew 235 

From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture. 
Were stript of their thin masks and various 
hue. 
And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own, 
Till in the nakedness of false and true 
They stand before their Lord, each to receive its 
due ! 240 



174 ODE TO LIBERTY 

XVII 

" He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever 

Can be between the cradle and the grave, 
Crowned him the King of Life. O vain endeavour ! 

If on his own high will, a willing slave, 244 

He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor! 
What if earth can clothe and feed 
Amplest millions at their need, 
And power in thought be as the tree within the seed ? 
Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor. 

Driving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, 250 
Checks the great mother stooping to caress her, 
And cries. Give me, thy child, dominion 
Over all height and depth ! if Life can breed 

New wants, and wealth from those who toil and 
groan, 254 

Rend, of thy gifts and hers, a thousandfold for 
one! 

XVIII 

" Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave 

Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star 
Beckons the sun from the Eoan wave, 

Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car 
Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame ; 260 

Comes she not, and come ye not. 
Rulers of eternal thought. 
To judge with solemn truth life's ill-apportioned 
lot,— 
Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame 

Of what has been, the Hope of what will be ? 265 
O, Liberty ! if such could be thy name 

Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from 
thee; 



TEE SENSITIVE PLANT 175 

If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought 
By blood or tears, have not the wise and free 
Wept tears, and blood like tears?" — The solemn 
harmony 270 

XIX 

Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing 

To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn ; 
Then as a wild swan, when sublimely winging 

Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn, 
Sinks headlong through the aerial golden light 275 
On the heavy-sounding plain, 
When the bolt has pierced its brain ; 
As summer clouds dissolve, unburdened of their rain ; 
As a far taper fades with fading night ; 

As a brief insect dies with dying day, — 280 

My song, its pinions disarrayed of might, 
Drooped ; o'er it closed the echoes far away 
Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, 
As waves which lately paved his watery way 
Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous 
play. 285 

1820. 

THE SENSITIVE PLANT 

PART I 

A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, 
And the young winds fed it with silver dew. 
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light. 
And closed them beneath the kisses of night. 

And the Spring arose on the garden fair, 5 

Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere ; 



176 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 

And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast 
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. 

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss 

In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, 10 

Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet 

want. 
As the companionless Sensitive Plant. 

The snowdrop, and then the violet. 

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, 14 

And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, 

sent 
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. 

Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, 
And narcissi, the fairest among them all. 
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess 
Till they die of their own dear loveliness, 20 

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, 
Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale, 
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen 
Through their pavilions of tender green ; 

And the hyacinth, purple, and white, and blue, 25 
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew 
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense. 
It was felt like an odour within the sense ; 

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest, 29 
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, 
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air 
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare ; 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT 177 

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, 

As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup, 

Till the fiery star, which is its eye, 35 

Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky ; 

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose — 

The sweetest flower for scent that blows — 

And all rare blossoms from every clime. 

Grew in that garden in perfect prime. 40 

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom 
Was prankt, under boughs of embowering blossom, 
With golden and green light, slanting through 
Their heaven of many a tangled hue. 

Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, 45 

And starry river-buds glimmered by. 

And around them the soft stream did glide and 

dance 
With a motion of sweet sound and radiance. 

And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss. 
Which led through the garden along and across, 50 
Some open at once to the sun and the breeze. 
Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees. 

Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells. 

As fair as the famous asphodels, 

And flow'rets which, drooping as day drooped too, 55 

Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue. 

To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew. 

And from this undefiled Paradise 

The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes 



178 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 

Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet 60 

Can first luU^ and at last must awaken it), 

When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them 

As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem, 

Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one 

Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun ; 65 

For each one was interpenetrated 
With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, 
Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear 
Wrapt and filled by their mutual atmosphere. 

But the Sensitive Plant, which could give small 
fruit 70 

Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root. 
Received more than all, it loved more than ever, 
Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver ; 

For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower : 
Radiance and odour are not its dower ; 75 

It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full ; 
It desires what it has not, the Beautiful ! 

The light winds, which from unsustaining wings 
Shed the music of many murmurings ; 
The beams which dart from many a star 80 

Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar ; 

The plumed insects swift and free. 

Like golden boats on a sunny sea. 

Laden with light and odour, which pass 

Over the gleam of the living grass ; 85 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT 179 

The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie 
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high, 
Then wander like spirits among the spheres, 
Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears ; 

The quivering vapours of dim noontide, 90 

Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide, 
In which every sound, and odour, and beam, 
Move, as reeds in a single stream ; — 

Each and all like ministering angels were 
For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, 95 

Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by 
Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky. 

And when evening descended from Heaven above. 
And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love. 
And delight, though less bright, was far more deep. 
And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep, 101 

And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were 

drowned 
In an ocean of dreams without a sound. 
Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress 
The light sand which paves it, consciousness ; 105 

(Only overhead the sweet nightingale 

Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, 

And snatches of its Elysian chant 

Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant.) 

The Sensitive Plant was the earliest 110 

Upgathered into the bosom of rest : 
A sweet child weary of its delight, 



180 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 

The feeblest and yet the favourite, 
Cradled within the embrace of night. 

PART II 

There was a Power in this sweet place, 115 

An Eve in this Eden ; a ruling grace 
Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream, 
Was as God is to the starry scheme : 

A Lady, the wonder of her kind, 

Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind, 120 

Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion 
Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean, 

Tended the garden from morn to even : 

And the meteors of that sublunar heaven. 

Like the lamps of the air when night walks forth, 125 

Laughed round her footsteps up from the Earth! 

She had no companion of mortal race. 

But her tremulous breath and her flushing face 

Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her 

eyes. 
That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise : 130 

As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake 

Had deserted heaven while the stars were awake, 

As if yet around her he lingering were, 

Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. 

Her step seemed to pity the grass it prest; 135 

You might hear, by the heaving of her breast. 
That the coming and going of the wind 
Brought pleasure there, and left passion behind. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT 181 

And wherever her airy footstep trod, 
Her trailing hair from the grassy sod 140 

Erased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep, 
Like a sunny storm o'er the dark green deep. 

I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet 
Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet ; 
I doubt not they felt the spirit that came 145 

From her glowing fingers through all their frame. 

She sprinkled bright water from the stream 

On those that were faint with the sunny beam ; 

And out of the cups of the heavy flowers 

She emptied the rain of the thunder-showers. 150 

She lifted their heads with her tender hands, 
And sustained them with rods and osier bands ; 
If the flowers had been her own infants, she 
Could never have nursed them more tenderly. 

And all killing insects and gnawing worms, 155 

And things of obscene and unlovely forms, 
She bore in a basket of Indian woof. 
Into the rough woods far aloof, — 

In a basket, of grasses and wild flowers full, 
The freshest her gentle hands could pull 160 

For the poor banished insects, whose intent. 
Although they did ill, was innocent. 

But the bee, and the beamlike ephemeris 
Whose path is the lightning's, and soft moths that kiss 
The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she 
Make her attendant angels be. 166 



182 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 

And many an antenatal tomb, 

Where butterflies dream of the life to come, 

She left clinging round the smooth and dark 

Edge of the odorous cedar bark. 170 

This fairest creature from earliest spring 
Thus moved through the garden ministering 
All the sweet season of summer tide, 
And ere the first leaf looked brown — she died ! 

PART III 

Three days the flowers of the garden fair, 175 

Like stars when the moon is awakened, were. 

Or the waves of Baise, ere luminous 

She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius. 

And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant 
Felt the sound of the funeral chant, 180 

And the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow, 
And the sobs of the mourners, deep and low ; 

The weary sound and the heavy breath, 

And the silent motions of passing death, 

And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank, 185 

Sent through the pores of the cofiin plank. 

The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass, 
Were bright with tears as the crowd did pass ; 
From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone, 
And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan. 190 

The garden, once fair, became cold and foul. 
Like the corpse of her who had been its soul : 
Which at first was lovely as if in sleep, 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT 183 

Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap 

To make men tremble who never weep. 195 

Swift summer into the autumn flowed, 
And frost in the mist of the morning rode, 
Though the noonday sun looked clear and bright, 
Mocking the spoil of the secret night. 

The rose-leaves, like flakes of crimson snow, 200 

Paved the turf and the moss below. 
The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan, 
Like the head and the skin of a dying man. 

And Indian plants, of scent and hue 

The sweetest that ever were fed on dew, 205 

Leaf after leaf, day after day. 

Were massed into the common clay. 

And the leaves, brown, yellow, and gray, and red. 
And white with the whiteness of what is dead, 
Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind past ; 210 

Their whistling noise made the birds aghast. 

And the gusty winds waked the winged seeds 

Out of their birthplace of ugly weeds, 

Till they clung round many a sweet flower's stem, 

Which rotted into the earth with them. 215 

The water-blooms under the rivulet 
Fell from the stalks on which they were set , 
And the eddies drove them here and there, 
As the winds did those of the upper air. 

Then the rain came down, and the broken stalks 220 
Were bent and tangled across the walks ; 



184 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 

And the leafless network of parasite bowers 
Massed into ruin, and all sweet flowers. 

Between the time of the wind and the snow, 
All loathliest weeds began to grow, 225 

Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck, 
Like the water-snake's belly and the toad's back. 

And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank. 
And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank. 
Stretched out its long and hollow shank, 230 

And stifled the air till the dead wind stank. 

And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath. 
Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth. 
Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue. 
Livid, and starred with a lurid dew. 235 

And agarics and fungi, with mildew and mould, 
Started like mist from the wet ground cold ; 
Pale, fleshy, as if the decaying dead 
With a spirit of growth had been animated ! 

Their moss rotted off them, flake by flake, 240 

Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer's stake, 
Where rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high. 
Infecting the winds that wander by. 

Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum, 

Made the running rivulet thick and dumb, 245 

And at its outlet, flags huge as stakes 

Dammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes. 

And hour by hour, when the air was still, 
The vapours arose which have strength to kill : 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT 185 

At morn they were seen, at noon they were felt, 250 
At night they were darkness no star could melt. 

And unctuous meteors from spray to spray 

Crept and flitted in broad noonday 

Unseen ; every branch on which they alit 

By a venomous blight was burned and bit. 255 

The Sensitive Plant, like one forbid, 
Wept, and the tears within each lid 
Of its folded leaves which together grew, 
Were changed to a blight of frozen glue. 

For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon 260 
By the heavy axe of the blast were hewn ; 
The sap shrank to the root through every pore, 
As blood to a heart that will beat no more. 

For Winter came : The wind was his whip ; 

One choppy finger was on his lip ; 265 

He had torn the cataracts from the hills, 

And they clanked at his girdle like manacles ; 

His breath was a chain which without a sound 
The earth, and the air, and the water bound ; 
He came, fiercely driven in his chariot-throne 270 

By the tenfold blasts of the Arctic zone. 

Then the weeds which were forms of living death 

Fled from the frost to the earth beneath ; 

Their decay and sudden flight from frost 

Was but like the vanishing of a ghost ! 275 

And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant 
The moles and the dormice died for want : 



186 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 

The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air, 

And were caught in the branches naked and bare. 

First there came down a thawing rain 280 

And its dull drops froze on the boughs again ; 
Then there steamed up a freezing dew 
Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew ; 

And a northern whirlwind, wandering about 
Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out, 285 

Shook the boughs, thus laden, and heavy and stiff, 
And snapped them off with his rigid grift\ 

When winter had gone and spring came back, 
The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck ; 
But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and 
darnels, 290 

Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels. 

CONCLUSION 

Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that 

Which within its boughs like a spirit sat 

Ere its outward form had known decay, 

Now felt this change, I cannot say. 295 

Whether that lady's gentle mind. 
No longer with the form combined 
Which scattered love, as stars do light. 
Found sadness, where it left delight, 

I dare not guess ; but in this life 300 

Of error, ignorance, and strife. 
Where nothing is, but all things seem. 
And we the shadows of the dream, 



BIEGE FOR THE YEAR 187 

It is a modest creed, and yet 

Pleasant, if one considers it^ 305 

To own that death itself must be, 

Like all the rest, a mockery. 

That garden sweet, that lady fair, 

And all sweet shapes and odours there, 

In truth have never past away : 310 

'T is we, 't is ours, are changed ; not they. 

For love, and beauty, and delight, 

There is no death nor change ; their might 

Exceeds our organs, which endure 

No light, being themselves obscure. 315 

1820. 



DIRGE FOR THE YEAR 

Orphan hours, the year is dead, 

Come and sigh, come and weep ! 
Merry hours, smile instead, 

For the year is but asleep : 
See, it smiles as it is sleeping, 5 

Mocking your untimely weeping. 

As an earthquake rocks a corse 

In its coffin in the clay. 
So white Winter, that rough nurse, 

Rocks the death-cold year to-day ; 10 

Solemn hours ! wail aloud 
For your mother in her shroud. 

As the wild air stirs and sways 
The tree-swung cradle of a child, 



188 TO NIGHT 

So the breath of these rude days 15 

Rocks the year : — be calm and mild, 
Trembling hours ; she will arise 
With new love within her eyes. 

January gray is here. 

Like a sexton by her grave ; 20 

February bears the bier, 

March with grief doth howl and rave, 
And April weeps — but, O ye hours ! 
Follow with May's fairest flowers. 

January 1, 1821. 

TO NIGHT 

Swiftly walk over the western wave. 

Spirit of Night ! 
Out of the misty eastern cave, 
. Where all the long and lone daylight 
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, 5 

Which make thee terrible and dear, — 

Swift be thy flight ! 

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray. 

Star-inwrought! 
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day, 10 

Kiss her until she be wearied out, 
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, 
Touching all with thine opiate wand — 

Come, long-sought ! 

When I arose and saw the dawn, 15 

I sighed for thee ; 
When light rode high, and the dew was gone, 



SONNET TO BYRON 189 

And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, 
And the weary Day turned to his rest, 
Lingering like an unloved guest, 20 

I sighed for thee. 

Thy brother Death came, and cried : 

Wouldst thou me ? 
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, 
Murmured like a noontide bee : 25 

Shall I nestle near thy side ? 
Wouldst thou me ? — And I replied : 

No, not thee ! 

Death will come when thou art dead. 

Soon, too soon — 30 

Sleep will come when thou art fled ; 

Of neither would I ask the boon 

I ask of thee, beloved Night — 

Swift be thine approaching flight. 

Come soon, soon ! 35 

1821. 



SONNET TO BYRON 

[I AM afraid these verses will not please you, but] 
If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill 

Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair 
The ministration of the thoughts that fill 

The mind which, like a worm whose life may share 
A portion of the unapproachable, 5 

Marks your creations rise as fast and fair 
As perfect worlds at the Creator's will. 
But such is my regard that nor your power 

To soar above the heights where others [climb], 



190 TO EMILIA VIVIANI 

Nor fame, that shadow of the unborn hour 10 

Cast from the envious future on the time, 
Move one regret for his unhonoured name 

Who dares these words : — the worm beneath the sod 

May lift itself in homage of the God. 
1821. 

LINES 



Far, far away, O ye 

Halycons of memory! 
Seek some far calmer nest 
Than this abandoned breast ; 
No news of your false spring 5 

To my heart's winter bring ; 
Once having gone, in vain 

Ye come again. 

II 

Vultures, who build your bowers 

High in the future's towers! 10 

Withered hopes on hopes are spread ; 

Dying joys, choked by the dead. 

Will serve your beaks for prey 

Many a day. 
1821. 

TO EMILIA VIVIANI 

Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me 

Sweet-basil and mignonette ? 
Embleming love and health, which never yet 
In the same wreath might be. 

Alas, and they are wet I 5 



TO 191 

Is it with thy kisses or thy tears? 

For never rain nor dew 

Such fragrance drew 
From plant or flower — ^ the very doubt endears 

My sadness ever new, 10 

The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed, for thee. 

Send the stars light, but send not love to me, 

In whom love ever made 
Health like a heap of embers soon to fade. 
March, 1821. 



TO 



Music, when soft voices die. 
Vibrates in the memory ; 
Odours, when sweet violets sicken, 
Live within the sense they quicken ; 

Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead. 
Are heaped for the beloved's bed ; 
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, 
Love itself shall slumber on. 
1821. 



TO 



One word is too often profaned 

For me to profane it. 
One feeling too falsely disdained 

For thee to disdain it ; 
One hope is too like despair 

For prudence to smother. 
And Pity from thee more dear 

Than that from another. 



192 TO 



I can give not what men call love, 

But wilt thou accept not 10 

The worship the heart lifts above 

And the Heavens reject not, — 
The desire of the moth for the star. 

Of the night for the morrow, 
The devotion to something afar 15 

From the sphere of our sorrow ? 
1821. 



TO 



When passion's trance is overpast, 

If tenderness and truth could last 

Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep 

Some mortal slumber, dark and deep, 

I should not weep, I should not weep ! 5 

It were enough to feel, to see 

Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly. 

And dream the rest — and burn and be 

The secret food of fires unseen. 

Could st thou but be as thou hast been. 10 

After the slumber of the year 
The woodland violets reappear ; 
All things revive in field or grove 
And sky and sea, but two, which move 
And form all others, life and love. 15 

1821. 



MUTABILITY 193 

BRIDAL SONG 



The golden gates of sleep unbar 

Where strength and beauty, met together, 
Kindle their image like a star 

In a sea of glassy weather ! 
Night, with all thy stars look down ; 6 

Darkness, weep thy holiest dew ; — 
Never smiled the inconstant moon 

On a pair so true. 
Let eyes not see their own delight ; 
Haste, swift hour, and thy flight 10 

Oft renew. 

II 

Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her ! 

Holy stars, permit no wrong I 
And return to wake the sleeper, 

Dawn, — ere it be long. 15 

O joy ! O fear ! what will be done 
In the absence of the sun I 
Come along ! 
1821. 

MUTABILITY 

The flower that smiles to-day 

To-morrow dies ; 
All that we wish to stay. 

Tempts and then flies. 
What is this world's delight ? 5 

Lightning that mocks the night. 
Brief even as bright. 



194 SONNET 

Virtue, how frail it is ! 

Friendship, how rare ! 
Love, how it sells poor bliss 10 

For proud despair ! 
But we, though soon they fall, 
Survive their joy and all 
Which ours we call. 

Whilst skies are blue and bright, 15 

Whilst flowers are gay. 
Whilst eyes that change ere night 

Make glad the day. 
Whilst yet the calm hours creep. 
Dream thou — and from thy sleep 20 

Then wake to weep. 
1821. 

SONNET 

POLITICAL GREATNESS 

Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame, 

Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts, 
Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame : — 

Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts ; 
History is but the shadow of their shame ; 5 

Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts. 
As to oblivion their blind millions fleet. 

Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery 
Of their own likeness. What are numbers, knit 

By force or custom ? Man who man would be, 10 
Must rule the empire of himself ! in it 
Must be supreme, establishing his throne 

On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy 
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone. 

1821. 



A LAMENT 195 



TO-MORROW 

Where art thou, beloved To-morrow ? 

When young and old, and strong and weak, 
Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow, 

Thy sweet smiles we ever seek, — 
In thy place — ah ! well-a-day ! 5 

We find the thing we fled — To-day. 

1821. 

A LAMENT 

O World ! O Life ! O Time ! 
On whose last steps I climb. 

Trembling at that where I had stood before ; 
When will return the glory of your prime ? 

No more — oh, never more ! 5 

Out of the day and night 
A joy has taken flight ; 

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, 
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight 
No more — oh, never more ! 10 

1821. 

A LAMENT 

Swifter far than summer's flight. 
Swifter far than youth's delight, 
Swifter far than happy night, 

Art thou come and gone : 
As the earth when leaves are dead, 6 

As the night when sleep is sped, 
As the heart when joy is fled, 

I am left alone, alone. 



196 A LAMENT 

The swallow Summer comes again, 

The owlet Night resumes her reign, 10 

But the wild swan Youth is fain 

To fly with thee, false as thou : 
My heart each day desires the morrow. 
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow ; 
Vainly would my winter borrow 15 

Sunny leaves from any bough. 

Lilies for a bridal bed, 
Roses for a matron's head, 
Violets for a maiden dead ; 

Pansies let my flowers be : 20 

On the living grave I bear, 
Scatter them without a tear ; 
Let no friend, however dear, 

Waste one hope, one fear for me. 
1821. 



ADONAIS 

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS 
PREFACE 

^dpfJLaKOV ^A0e, BtW, totI (TOv (XTOfxa, ^dpfiaKcv elSe? 
IIw? rev TOts x^^^^^^*- TToreSpa/ae, kouk eykvKdvdrj ; 
Tts 6e ^poTOS TocrcrovTOi/ avafxepo^, r} Kepdaai rot, 
\ *H fiovi/at AaAeoi'Tt to <pa.pp.aKOv ; e/c^uyej/ wfiav. 

MoscHUS, Epitaph. Bion. 

It is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this poem 
a criticism upon the claims of its lamented object to be classed 
among the writers of the highest genius who have adorned our 
age. My known repugnance to the narrow principles of taste on 
which several of his earlier compositions were modelled, proves, 
at least, that I am an impartial judge. I consider the fragment 
of Hyperion as second to nothing that was ever produced by a 
writer of the same years. 

John Keats died at Rome of a consumption, in his twenty- 
fourth year, on the 23d of February, 1821 ; and was buried in 
the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants in that city, 
under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the massy 
walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed 
the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space 
among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It 
might make one in love with death, to think that one should be 
buried in so sweet a place. 

The genius of the lamented person to whose memory I have 
dedicated these unworthy verses, was not less delicate and fragile 
than it was beautiful ; and, where canker-worms abound, what 
wonder if its young flower was blighted in the bud ? The savage 
criticism on his Endymioriy which appeared in the Quarterly Re- 
view, produced the most violent effect on his susceptible mind; 
the agitation thus originated ended in the rupture of a blood- 
vessel in the lungs ; a rapid consumption ensued ; and the suc- 
ceeding acknowledgments from more candid critics, of the true 
greatness of his powers, were ineffectual to heal the wound thus 
wantonly inflicted. 



198 ADONAIS 

It may be well said that these wretched men know not what 
they do. They scatter their insults and their slanders without 
heed as to whether the poisoned shaft lights on a heart made 
callous by many blows, or one, like Keats's, composed of more 
penetrable stuff. One of their associates is, to my knowledge, a 
most base and unprincipled calumniator. As to Endymion, was 
it a poem, whatever might be its defects, to be treated contemptu- 
ously by those who had celebrated with various degrees of com- 
placency and panegyric, Paris, and Woman, and A Syrian Tale, 
and Mrs. Lefanu, and Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Howard Payne, and 
a long list of the illustrious obscure? Are these the men who, 
in their venal good-nature, presumed to draw a parallel between 
the Rev. Mr. Milman and Lord Byron? What gnat did they 
strain at here, after having swallowed all those camels? Against 
what woman taken in adultery dares the foremost of these literary 
prostitutes to cast his opprobrious stone ? Miserable man ! you, 
one of the meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest 
specimens of the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your ex- 
cuse, that, murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers, but 
used none. 

The circumstances of the closing scene of poor Keats's life 
were not made known to me until the Elegy was ready for the 
press. I am given to understand that the wound which his sen- 
sitive spirit had received from the criticism of Endymion was 
exasperated by the bitter sense of unrequited benefits ; the poor 
fellow seems to have been hooted from the stage of life, no 
less by those on whom he had wasted the promise of his genius, 
than those on whom he had lavished his fortune and his care. He 
was accompanied to Rome, and attended in his last illness by Mr. 
Severn, a young artist of the highest promise, who, I have been 
informed, " almost risked his own life, and sacrificed every pros- 
pect to unwearied attendance upon his dying friend." Had I 
known these circumstances before the completion of my poem, 
I should have been tempted to add my feeble tribute of applause 
to the more solid recompense which the virtuous man finds in 
the recollection of his own motives. Mr. Severn can dispense 
with a reward from "such stuff as dreams are made of." His 
conduct is a golden augury of the success of his future career — 
may the unextinguished Spirit of his illustrious friend animate the 
creations of his pencil, and plead against Oblivion for his name I 



ADONAIS 199 



'Ao"Tr7p irplv fikv eAa/XTre? ivi ^^oktlv ewo?. 
NOi/ Se davoiv Aa/Airets eo-Trepo? ev (/>di/u,eVoi9. 

Plato. 



I WEEP for Adonais — he is dead ! 
Oh, weep for Adonais ! though our tears 
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head ! 
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years 
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 5 
And teach them thine own sorrow! Say : " With me 
Died Adonais ; till the Future dares 
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be 
An echo and a light unto eternity ! " 

II 

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 10 
When thy son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies 
In darkness ? Where was lorn Urania 
When Adonais died ? With veiled eyes, 
'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise 
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, 15 
Rekindled all the fading melodies 
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, 
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of Death. 

Ill 

Oh, weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep ! 20 

Yet wherefore ? Quench within their burning bed 
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep. 
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep ; 
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair 
Descend : — oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 
Will yet restore him to the vital air ; 26 

Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair. 



200 ADONAIS 

,j0^ IV 

Most musical of mourners, weep again ! 
Lament anew, Urania ! — He died. 
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 30 

Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride 
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide. 
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite 
Of lust and blood ; he went, unterrified, 
Into the gulf of death ; but his clear Sprite 35 

Yet reigns o'er earth ; the third among the sons of 
light. 



Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 
Not all to that bright station dared to climb : 
And happier they their happiness who knew, 
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 40 
In which suns perished ; others more sublime. 
Struck by the envious wrath of man or God, 
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime ; 
And some yet live, treading the thorny road, 
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene 
abode. 45 

VI 

But now, thy youngest, dearest one has perished. 
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew. 
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished. 
And fed with true-love tears instead of dew ; 
Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 50 

Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last. 
The bloom, whose petals, nipt before they blew, 
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste ; 
The broken lily lies — the storm is overpast. 



ADONAIS 201 



VII 



To that high capital, where kingly Death 55 

Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, 
He came ; and bought, with price of purest breath, 
A grave among the eternal. — Come away ! 
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day 
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof ! while still 60 

He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay ; 
Awake him not ! surely he takes his fill 
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. 

VIII 

He will awake no more, oh, never more ! 
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace . 65 

The shadow of white Death, and at the door 
Invisible Corruption waits to trace 
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place ; 
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe 
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface 70 
So fair a prey, till darkness and the law 
Of change, shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain 
draw. 

IX 

Oh, weep for Adonais ! — The quick Dreams, 
The passion-winged ministers of thought. 
Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams 75 
Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught 
The love which was its music, wander not, — 
Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain. 
But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn 
their lot 79 

Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain. 
They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again. 



202 ADONAIS 

, X 

And one with trembling hands clasps his cold 

head, 
And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries : 
" Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead ; 
See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, 85 

Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies 
A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain." 
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise ! 
She knew not 't was her own ; as with no stain 
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. 90 

XI 

One from a lucid urn of starry dew 
Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them ; 
Another dipt her profuse locks, and threw 
The wreath upon him, like an anadem 
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem ; 95 
Another in her wilful grief would break 
Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem 
A greater loss with one which was more weak ; 
And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. 

XII 

Another Splendour on his mouth alit, 100 

That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath 
Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit, 
And pass into the panting heart beneath 
With lightning and with music : the damp death 
Quenched its caress upon his icy lips ; 105 

And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath 
Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips. 
It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its 
eclipse. 



ADONAIS 203 

XIII 

And others came : Desires and Adorations, 
Winged Persuasions, and veiled Destinies, 110 

Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering incarna- 
tions 
Of Hopes and Fears, and twilight Fantasies, 
And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, 
And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam 
Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, 115 

Came in slow pomp ; — the moving pomp might seem 
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. 

XIV 

All he had loved and moulded into thought 
From shape and hue and odour and sweet sound. 
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 120 

Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, 
Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, 
Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day ; 
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned, 
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, 125 

And the wild winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay. 

XV 

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains. 
And feeds her grief with his remembered lay. 
And will no more reply to winds or fountains. 
Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, 
Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day ; 131 

Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear 
Than those for whose disdain she pined away 
Into a shadow of all sounds : — a drear 
Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen 
hear. 135 



( 



204 ADONAIS 

XVI 

Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw 

down 
Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, 
Or they dead leaves ; since her delight is flown, 
For whom should she have waked the sullen year ? 
To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear, 140 

Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both 
Thou, Ad6nais : wan they stand and sere 
Amid the faint companions of their youth. 
With dew all turned to tears ; odour, to sighing ruth. 

XVII ^^.,- 

Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale, 145 

Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain ; 
Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale 
Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain 
Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, 
Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, 150 
As Albion wails for thee : the curse of Cain 
Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast, 
And scared the angel soul that wa^Jts earthly guest ! 

XVIII 

Ah woe is me ! Winter is come and gone, 
But grief returns with the revolving year; 155 

The airs and streams renew their joyous tone ; 
The ants, the bees, the swallows, reappear ; 
Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier ; 
The amorous birds now pair in every brake, 
And build their mossy homes in field and brere ; 160 
And the green lizard, and the golden snake. 
Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake. 



ADONAIS 205 



XIX 



Through wood and stream and field and hill and 

Ocean 
A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst, 
As it has ever done, with change and motion, 165 
From the great morning of the world when first 
God dawned on Chaos : in its steam immersed, 
The lamps of heaven flash with a softer light ; 
All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst, 
Diffuse themselves, and spend in love's delight 170 
The beauty and the joy of their renewed might. 

XX 

The leprous corpse, touched by this spirit tender. 
Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath ; 
Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour 
Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death, 175 
And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath. 
Naught we know, dies. Shall that alone which 

knows 
Be as a sword consumed before the sheath 
By sightless lightning ? — th' intense atom glows 
A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. 180 

XXI 

Alas ! that all we loved of him should be. 
But for our grief, as if it had not been. 
And grief itself be mortal ! Woe is me ! 
Whence are we, and why are we ? of what scene 
The actors or spectators? Great and mean 185 

Meet massed in death, who lends what life must 

borrow. 
As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, 



206 ADONAIS 

Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, 
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to 
sorrow. 

XXII 

He will awake no more, oh, never more ! 190 

"Wake thou," cried Misery, "childless Mother, 

rise 
Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart's core, 
A wound more fierce than his, with tears and 

sighs." 
And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes. 
And all the Echoes whom their sister's song 195 
Had held in holy silence, cried : " Arise ! '' 
Swift as a thought by the snake Memory stung. 
From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung. 

XXIII 

She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs 
Out of the East, and follows wild and drear 200 
The golden Day, which, on eternal wings. 
Even as a ghost abandoning a bier. 
Had left the Earth a corpse ; — sorrow and fear 
So struck, so roused, so rapt, Urania ; 
So saddened round her like an atmosphere 205 

Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way, 
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. 

XXIV 

Out of her secret Paradise she sped, 

Through camps and cities rough with stone, and 

steel. 
And human hearts, which, to her aery tread 210 
Yielding not, wounded the invisible 



ADONAIS 207 

Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell ; 

And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than 

they, 
Rent the soft Form they never could repel, 214 

Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, 
Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way. 

XXV 

In the death-chamber for a moment Death, 
Shamed by the presence of that living Might, 
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath 
Revisited those lips, and life's pale light 220 

Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear de- 
light. 
" Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless, 
As silent lightning leaves the starless night ! 
Leave me not ! " cried Urania : her distress 
Roused Death : Death rose and smiled, and met her 
vain caress. 225 

XXVI 

" Stay yet awhile ! speak to me once again ; 
Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live ; 
And in my heartless breast and burning brain 
That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive. 
With food of saddest memory kept alive, 230 

Now thou art dead, as if it were a part 
Of thee, my Adonais! I would give 
All that I am to be as thou now art ! 
But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart ! 

XXVII 

^'O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, 235 

Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men 



208 ADONAIS 

Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty 

heart 
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den ? 
Defenceless as thou wert, oh, where was then 239 
Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear? 
Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when 
Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere, 
The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like 

deer. 

XXVIII 

" The herded wolves, bold only to pursue ; 

The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead ; 245 

The vultures, to the conqueror's banner true, 

Who feed where Desolation first has fed. 

And whose wings rain contagion ; — how they fled, 

When, like Apollo from his golden bow. 

The Pythian of the age one arrow sped 250 

And smiled ! — The spoilers tempt no second 

blow. 
They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying 

low. 

XXIX 

" The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn ; 
He sets, and each ephemeral insect then 
Is gathered into death without a dawn, 255 

And the immortal stars awake again. 
So is it in the world of living men : 
A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight 
Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when 
It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its 
light 260 

Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night." 



ADONAIS 209 

XXX 

Thus ceased she : and the mountain shepherds came, 
Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent ; 
The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame 
Over his living head like Heaven is bent, 265 

An early but enduring monument. 
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song 
In sorrow ; from her wilds lerne sent 
The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, 
And love taught grief to fall like music from his 
tongue. 270 

XXXI 

'Midst others of less note, came one frail Form, 
A phantom among men, companionless 
As the last cloud of an expiring storm. 
Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess. 
Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness, 275 

Actseon-like, and now he fled astray 
With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness. 
And his own thoughts, along that rugged way. 
Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey. 

XXXII 

A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift — 280 

A Love in desolation masked ; — a Power 
Girt round with weakness ; — it can scarce uplift 
The weight of the superincumbent hour ; 
It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, 
A breaking billow ; — even whilst we speak 285 
Is it not broken ? On the withering flower 
The killing sun smiles brightly ; on a cheek 
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may 
break. 



210 ADONAIS 

XXXIII 

His head was bound with pansies overblown, 
And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue ; 290 
And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, 
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew 
Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew, 
Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart 
Shook the weak hand that grasped it ; of that crew 
He came the last, neglected and apart ; 296 

A herd-abandoned deer, struck by the hunter's dart. 

XXXIV 

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan 

Smiled through their tears ; well knew that gentle 

band 
Who in another's fate now wept his own; 300 

As in the accents of an unknown land 
He sang new sorrow ; sad Urania scanned 
The Stranger's mien, and murmured : " Who art 

thou?" 
He answered not, but with a sudden hand 
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, 305 
Which was like Cain's or Christ's. — Oh ! that it should 

be so ! 

XXXV 

What softer voice is hushed over the dead? 
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown ? 
What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed, 
In mockery of monumental stone, 310 

The heavy heart heaving without a moan? 
If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise. 
Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one ; 
Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs. 
The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice. 315 



ADONAIS 211 

XXXVI 

Our Adonais has drunk poison — oh, 
What deaf and viperous murderer could crown 
Life's early cup with such a draught of woe ? 
The nameless worm would now itself disown : 
It felt, yet could escape the magic tone 320 

Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong, 
But what was howling in one breast alone. 
Silent with expectation of the song. 
Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre un- 
strung. 

XXXVII 

Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 325 

Live ! fear no heavier chastisement from me, 
Thou noteless blot on a remembered name ! 
But be thyself, and know thyself to be ! 
And ever at thy season be thou free 
To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow : 330 
Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee ; 
Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, 
And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as now. 

XXXVIII 

Nor let us Weep that our delight is fled 
Far from these carrion-kites that scream below ; 335 
He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead ; 
Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. 
Dust to the dust ! but the pure spirit shall flow 
Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 
A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 340 

Through time and change, unquenchably the same, 
Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of 
shame. 



212 ADONAIS 

XXXIX 

Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep — 
He hath awakened from the dream of life — 
'T is we, who, lost in stormy visions, keep 345 

With phantoms an unprofitable strife, 
And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife 
Invulnerable nothings. — We decay- 
Like corpses in a charnel ; fear and grief 
Convulse us and consume us day by day, 350 

And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living 
clay. 

XL 

He has outsoared the shadow of our night ; 
Envy and calumny, and hate and pain. 
And that unrest which men miscall delight. 
Can touch him not and torture not again ; 355 

From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
He is secure, and now can never mourn 
A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain ; 
Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, 
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 360 

XLI 

He lives, he wakes — 't is Death is dead, not he ; 
Mourn not for Adonais. — Thou young Dawn, 
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee 
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone ! 
Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan ! 365 

Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou 

Air, 
Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown 
O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare 
Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair ! 



ADONAIS 218 

XLII 

He is made one with Nature : there is heard 370 
His voice in all her music, from the moan 
Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird ; 
He is a presence to be felt and known 
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, 
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 375 
Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; 
Which wields the world with never-wearied love. 
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. 

XLIII 

He is a portion of the loveliness 
Which once he made more lovely : he doth bear 380 
His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress 
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling 

there 
All new successions to the forms they wear ; 
Torturing the unwilling dross that checks its flight 
To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; 385 
And bursting in its beauty and its might 
From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light. 

XLIV 

The splendours of the firmament of time 
May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not ; 
Like stars to their appointed height they climb, 390 
And death is a low mist which cannot blot 
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 
Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair. 
And love and life contend in it, for what 
Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there, 395 
And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. 



214 ADONAIS 

XLV 

The inheritors of unfulfilled renown 
Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, 
Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton 
Rose pale, his solemn agony had not 400 

Yet faded from him ; Sidney, as he fought 
And as he fell, and as he lived and loved, 
Sublimely mild, a spirit without spot, 
Arose ; and Lucan, by his death approved : 
Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. 405 

XLVI 

And many more, whose names on earth are dark, 
But whose transmitted effluence cannot die 
So long as fire outlives the parent spark, 
Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 
" Thou art become as one of us," they cry ; 410 

" It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long 
Swung blind in unascended majesty. 
Silent alone amid an Heaven of Song. 
Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng ! " 

XLVII 

Who mourns for Adonais? Oh, come forth, 415 
Fond wretch ! and know thyself and him aright. 
Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth ; 
As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light 
Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might 
Satiate the void circumference : then shrink 420 
Even to a point within our day and night ; 
And keep thy heart light, lest it make thee sink 
When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the 
brink. 



ADONAIS 215 

XLVIII 

Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre, 
Oh, not of him, but of our joy ; 't is nought 425 
That ages, empires, and religions, there 
Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought ; 
For such as he can lend, — they borrow not 
Glory from those who made the world their prey ; 
And he is gathered to the kings of thought 430 

Who waged contention with their time's decay, 
And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 

XLIX 

Go thou to Rome, — at once the Paradise, 
The grave, the city, and the wilderness ; 434 

And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, 
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress 
The bones of Desolation's nakedness. 
Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead 
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access. 
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead 440 
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread ; 



And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time 
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ; 
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime. 
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 445 

This refuge for his memory, doth stand 
Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath 
A field is spread, on which a newer band 
Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death, 
Welcoming him we lose with scarce-extinguished 
breath. 450 



216 ADONAIS 

LI 
Here pause : these graves are all too young as yet 
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned 
Its charge to each ; and if the seal is set, 
Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind. 
Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find 455 
Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, 
Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind 
Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. 
What Adonais is, why fear we to become? 

LII 

The One remains, the many change and pass ; 460 
Heaven's light for ever shines. Earth's shadows 

fly; 

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass. 
Stains the white radiance of eternity, 
Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, 464 
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! 
Follow where all is fled ! — Rome's azure sky. 
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak 
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. 

LIII 

Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart ? 
Thy hopes are gone before : from all things here 470 
They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart ! 
A light is past from the revolving year. 
And man, and woman ; and what still is dear 
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 
The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near : 475 
'T IS Adonais calls ! oh, hasten thither ! 
No more let Life divide what Death can join together. 



ADONAIS 217 

LIV 

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, 
That Beauty in which all things work and move, 
That Benediction which the eclipsing curse 480 

Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 
Which, through the web of being blindly wove 
By man and beast and earth and air and sea. 
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, 485 
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 

LV 

The breath whose might I have invoked in song 
Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 
Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; 490 
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! 
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar : 
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, 
The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 495 
1821. 



218 LINES 

A DIRGE 

Rough wind, that meanest loud 

Grief too sad for song ; 
Wild wind, when sullen cloud 

Knells all the night long ; 
Sad storm, whose tears are vain, 5 

Bare woods, whose branches strain. 
Deep caves and dreary main, 

Wail for the world's wrong ! 
1822. 

EPITAPH 

These are two friends whose lives were undivided : 
So let their memory be, now they have glided 
Under the grave ; let not their bones be parted. 
For their two hearts in life were single-hearted. 
1822. 

LINES 

When the lamp is shattered. 
The light in the dust lies dead ; 

When the cloud is scattered, 
The rainbow's glory is shed ; 

When the lute is broken, 5 

Sweet tones are remembered not ; 

When the lips have spoken, 
Loved accents are soon forgot. 

As music and splendour 
Survive not the lamp and the lute, 10 



SONG 219 

The heart's echoes render 
No song when the spirit is mute, — 

No song but sad dirges, 
Like the wind through a ruined cell. 

Or the mournful surges 15 

That ring the dead seaman's knell. 

When hearts have once mingled, 
Love first leaves the well-built nest ; 

The weak one is singled 
To endure what it once possest. 20 

O Love ! who bewailest 
The frailty of all things here, 

Why choose you the frailest 
For your cradle, your home, and your bier? 

Its passions will rock thee, 25 

As the storms rock the ravens on high : 

Bright reason will mock thee. 
Like the sun from a wintry sky. 

From thy nest every rafter 
Will rot, and thine eagle home 30 

Leave thee naked to laughter, 
When leaves fall and cold winds come. 

1822. 



SONG 

FROM " CHARLES THE FIRST " 

A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love 

Upon a wintry bough ; 
The frozen wind crept on above. 

The freezing stream below. 



) 



220 TO JANE 

There was no leaf upon the forest bare, 5 

No flower upon the ground, 
And little motion in the air 

Except the mill-wheel's sound. 

1822. 

TO JANE 

THE INVITATION 

Best and brightest, come away, 

Fairer far than this fair day. 

Which, like thee, to those in sorrow, 

Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow 

To the rough Year just awake 5 

In its cradle on the brake. 

The brightest hour of unborn Spring, 

Through the winter wandering, 

Found, it seems, the halcyon morn 

To hoar February born ; 10 

Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth. 

It kissed the forehead of the earth. 

And smiled upon the silent sea, 

And bade the frozen streams be free. 

And waked to music all their fountains, 15 

And breathed upon the frozen mountains. 

And like a prophetess of May 

Strewed flowers upon the barren way. 

Making the wintry world appear 

Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. 20 

Away, away, from men and towns. 
To the wild wood and the downs ; 
To the silent wilderness 
Where the soul need not repress 



TO JANE 221 

Its music, lest it should not find 25 

An echo in another's mind, 

While the touch of Nature's art 

Harmonizes heart to heart. 

I leave this notice on my door 

For each accustomed visitor : — 30 

" I am gone into the fields 

To take what this sweet hour yields. 

Reflection, you may come to-morrow, 

Sit by the fireside of Sorrow. 

You with the unpaid bill. Despair, 35 

You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care, 

I will pay you in the grave. 

Death will listen to your stave. 

Expectation, too, be off ! 

To-day is for itself enough. 40 

Hope, in pity, mock not Woe 

With smiles, nor follow where I go ; 

Long having lived on thy sweet food, 

At length I find one moment good 

After long pain — with all your love, 45 

This you never told me of." 

Radiant Sister of the Day, 

Awake, arise, and come away ! 

To the wild woods and the plains, 

And the pools where winter rains 50 

Image all their roof of leaves. 

Where the pine its garland weaves 

Of sapless green, and ivy dun. 

Round stems that never kiss the sun. 

Where the lawns and pastures be 55 

And the sandhills of the sea. 

Where the melting hoar-frost wets 

The daisy-star that never sets, 



222 TO JANE 

And wind-flowers, and violets, 

Which yet join not scent to hue, 60 

Crown the pale year weak and new; 

When the night is left behind 

In the deep east, dun and blind, 

And the blue noon is over us, 

And the multitudinous 65 

Billows murmur at our feet. 

Where the earth and ocean meet, 

And all things seem only one, 

In the universal Sun. 

February, 1822. 

TO JANE 

THE RECOLLECTION 



Now the last day of many days. 
All beautiful and bright as thou, 
The loveliest and the last, is dead, 
Rise, Memory, and write its praise ! 
Up, do thy wonted work ! come, trace 5 

The epitaph of glory fled. 
For now the Earth has changed its face, 
A frown is on the Heaven's brow. 

II 

We wandered to the Pine Forest 

That skirts the Ocean's foam, 10 

The lightest wind was in its nest, 

The tempest in its home. 
The whispering waves were half asleep, 

The clouds were gone to play, 



TO JANE 223 

And on the bosom of the deep 15 

The smile of Heaven lay ; 
It seemed as if the hour were one 

Sent from beyond the skies, 
Which scattered from above the sun 

A light of Paradise. 20 

III 

We paused amid the pines that stood 

The giants of the waste, 
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude 

As serpents interlaced. 
And soothed by every azure breath 25 

That under heaven is blown, 
To harmonies and hues beneath, 

As tender as its own ; 
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep. 

Like green waves on the sea, 30 

As still as in the silent deep 

The ocean-woods may be. 

IV 

How calm it was ! — the silence there 

By such a chain was bound. 
That even the busy woodpecker 35 

Made stiller by her sound 
The inviolable quietness ; 

The breath of peace we drew 
With its soft motion made not less 

The calm that round us grew. 40 

There seemed from the remotest seat 

Of the wide mountain waste. 
To the soft flower beneath our feet, 

A magic circle traced ; 



224 TO JANE 

A spirit interfused around, 45 

A thrilling silent life, 
To momentary peace it bound 

Our mortal nature's strife ; — 
And still I felt the centre of 

The magic circle there 50 

Was one fair Form that filled with love 

The lifeless atmosphere. 



We paused beside the pools that lie 

Under the forest bough ; 
Each seemed as 't were a little sky 55 

Gulfed in a world below ; 
A firmament of purple light. 

Which in the dark earth lay. 
More boundless than the depth of night, 

And purer than the day ; 60 

In which the lovely forests grew. 

As in the upper air, 
More perfect both in shape and hue 

Than any spreading there. 
There lay the glade, the neighbouring lawn, 65 

And through the dark green wood 
The white sun twinkling like the dawn 

Out of a speckled cloud. 
Sweet views which in our world above 

Can never well be seen, 70 

Were imaged by the water's love 

Of that fair forest green. 
And all was interfused beneath 

With an Elysian glow, 
An atmosphere without a breath, 75 

A softer day below. 



WITH A GUITAR 225 

Like one beloved, the scene had lent 

To the dark water's breast 
Its every leaf and lineament 

With more than truth exprest, 80 

Until an envious wind crept by, 

Like an unwelcome thought, 
Which from the mind's too faithful eye 

Blots one dear image out. 
Though Thou art ever fair and kind, 85 

And forests ever green. 
Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind. 

Than calm in waters seen. 
February, 1822. 



WITH A GUITAR 

TO JANE 

Ariel to Miranda : — Take 

This slave of Music, for the sake 

Of him, who is the slave of thee; 

And teach it all the harmony 

In which thou canst, and only thou, 5 

Make the delighted spirit glow, 

Till joy denies itself again, 

And, too intense, is turned to pain. 

For by permission and command 

Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, 10 

Poor Ariel sends this silent token 

Of more than ever can be spoken ; 

Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who 

From life to life must still pursue 

Your happiness, for thus alone 15 

Can Ariel ever find his own. 



226 WITH A GUITAR 

From Prospero's enchanted cell, 

As the mighty verses tell, 

To the throne of Naples he 

Lit you o'er the trackless sea, 20 

Flitting on, your prow before. 

Like a living meteor. 

When you die, the silent Moon, 

In her interlunar swoon. 

Is not sadder in her cell 25 

Than deserted Ariel ; 

When you live again on earth, 

Like an unseen star of birth, 

Ariel guides you o'er the sea 

Of life from your nativity. 30 

Many changes have been run 

Since Ferdinand and you begun 

Your course of love, and Ariel still 

Has tracked your steps and served your will. 

Now in humbler, happier lot, 35 

This is all remembered not ; 

And now, alas ! the poor sprite is 

Imprisoned for some fault of his 

In a body like a grave ; — 

From you he only dares to crave, 40 

For his service and his sorrow, 

A smile to-day, a song to-morrow. 

The artist who this idol wrought 

To echo all harmonious thought. 

Felled a tree, while on the steep 45 

The woods were in their winter sleep. 

Rocked in that repose divine 

On the wind-swept Apennine ; 

And dreaming, some of autumn past. 



WITH A GUITAR 227 

And some of spring approaching fast, 50 

And some of April buds and showers, 

And some of songs in July bowers, 

And all of love ; and so this tree, — 

O that such our death may be ! — 

Died in sleep, and felt no pain, 55 

To live in happier form again : 

From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star. 

The artist wrought this loved Guitar, 

And taught it justly to reply. 

To all who question skilfully, 60 

In language gentle as thine own ; 

Whispering in enamoured tone 

Sweet oracles of woods and dells, 

And summer winds in sylvan cells ; 

For it had learnt all harmonies 65 

Of the plains and of the skies. 

Of the forests and the mountains, 

And the many-voiced fountains; 

The clearest echoes of the hills. 

The softest notes of falling rills, 70 

The melodies of birds and bees, 

The murmuring of summer seas. 

And pattering rain, and breathing dew. 

And airs of evening ; and it knew 

That seldom-heard mysterious sound 75 

Which, driven on its diurnal round, 

As it floats through boundless day. 

Our world enkindles on its way. 

All this it knows, but will not tell 

To those who cannot question well 80 

The spirit that inhabits it ; 

It talks according to the wit 

Of its companions ; and no more 



228 WITH A GUITAR 

Is heard than has been felt before 
By those who tempt it to betray 85 

These secrets of an elder day. 
But, sweetly as its answers will 
Flatter hands of perfect skill, 
It keeps its highest, holiest tone 
For our beloved Friend alone. 90 

1822. 



NOTES 

PAGE 

1 Stanzas — April, 1814. 

See Introduction, page xxxi. ''The beautiful 'Stanzas/ 
dated 'April, 1814,' read like a fantasia of sorrow, the 
motives of which are supplied by Shelley's anticipated 
farewell to Bracknell, and his return, at the call of duty, to* a 
loveless home. ... It is moonless and starless night in the 
poem — night with its melancholy ebb of life and strength ; 
and at such an hour the lover is summoned to bid fare- 
well to a refuge as dear as this at Bracknell was to Shelley, 
and to loved ones as gentle and delicate in sympathy as he 
had found in Harriet Boinville and Cornelia Turner." — 
Dowden's Life of Shelley, I, 411. 

2 To Coleridge. 

''The poem beginning, 'O, there are spirits in the air/ 
was addressed in idea to Coleridge, whom he never knew; 
and at whose character he could only guess imperfectly, 
through his writings, and accounts he heard of him from 
some who knew him well. He regarded his change of opin- 
ions as rather an act of will than conviction, and believed 
that in his inner heart he would be haunted by what Shelley 
considered the better and holier aspirations of his youth.'^ 
— Mrs. Shelley's note. "I have often questioned whether 
the poem . . . has reference (as Mrs. Shelley declares it 
has) to Coleridge, or whether it was not rather addressed 
in a despondent mood by Shelley to his own spirit." — 
Dowden's Life of Shelley, I, 472. 

3 25-30. Note the references in this stanza to Coleridge's 
Rime of the Ancient Mariner, — ''glory of the moon," 
"Night's ghosts and dreams," "foul fiend." These seem to 
me opposed to Professor Dowden's conjecture. 

To Wordsworth. 

Shelley's early regard for Wordsworth slowly lessened. 
The elder poet, at first eloquently liberal in his political 
utterance, became conservative with years, and seemed to 
Shelley to be betraying his noblest human impulses. In 
1819 Shelley wrote his satire en Wordsworth, Peter Bell 
the Third. Cf. Browning's The Lost Leader. 

4 A Summer Evening Churchyard. 

See Introduction, page xxxv. " The summer evening that 
suggested to him the poem written in the churchyard of 
Lechlade, occurred during his voyage up the Thames, in 
the autumn of 1815. He had been advised by a physician 
to live as much as possible in the open air; and a fortnight 
of a bright warm July was spent in tracing the Thames to, 
its source." — Mrs. Shelley's note. 



230 NOTES 

PAGE 

4 3, 4. Cf. To Night, 11. 10, 11. 

5 • 25 sq. Note the poet's frequent premonitions of early 
death. See Introduction, pp. xxvi and xlix. 

5 Lines ("The cold earth slept below ")• 

"There can be no great rashness/' says Forman, "in 
suggesting that the subject of the poem is the death of 
Harriet Shelley, who drowned herself on the 9th of No- 
vember, 1816. In that case, 1815 and raven hair were used 
as a disguise, Harriet's hair having been a light brown." 

8 Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. 

Based on the Platonic doctrine of supreme beauty. See 
the speech of Diotima in Plato's Symposium. " The Hymn 
to Intellectual Beauty was conceived during his voyage 
round the lake with Lord Byron." — Mrs. Shelley's note. 
" A Presence, or its radiant yet awful shadow, haunts and 
startles and waylays us in all that is beautiful, sublime, or 
heroic in the world without us or in the world within; to 
this we dedicate our powers in all high moments of joy or 
aspiration; and when the ecstasy has sunk and the joy 
has faded, still in a calmer, purer temper, it may become 
the habit of our soul to follow upon the track of this ideal 
LoveHness, until in a measure we partake of its image." 

— Dowden's Life, II, 31. 

9 32-36. " The beauty of holiness and the holiness of 
beauty," said Sidney Lanier, "mean one thing, burn as one 
fire, shine as one light." 

49-52. Cf. Alastor, 11. 18-49. 

51. "pursuing." The final "g" is slurred, a common 
practice both in England and the Southern States. Cf. 
Arethusa, 11. 52, 53; Mont Blanc, 11. 107, 109; Prometheus 
Unbound, I, 1, 103, 4. 

10 59. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, IV, 453. 

11 Mont Blanc. 

This poem, like the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty and 
Lines Written among the Euganean Hills, — indeed, like all 
of Shelley's poems that touch the subject even remotely, — 
witnesses the unity of all nature, and its ideal significance. 
Sensible nature is but a world of symbols governed always 
by a Nature behind nature, by a Mind and Power 
"Remote, serene and inaccessible." 

*' Mont Blanc was inspired by a view of that mountain 
and its surrounding peaks and valleys, as he lingered on the 
Bridge of Arve on his way through the Valley of Chamouni." 

— Mrs. Shelley's note. " It was composed under the imme- 
diate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited 
by the objects which it attempts to describe; and as an 
undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to 
approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable 
wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those 



NOTES 231 

PAGE 

feelings sprang/' — Shelley's note. Cf. Coleridge's Hymn 
before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni. 

12 49 sq. The student will note the frequency with which 
Shelley and other romantic poets touch the idea of sleep. 
See Introduction, pp. Ix, Ixi. 

13 80. Cf. Wordsworth's sonnet, England and Switzerland, 
1802, 

14 86. "dsedal." Curiously made; complex; intricate. Note 
Shelley's fondness for the phrase "daedal earth." Ct. Ode 
to Liberty, 1. 18; Hymn of Pan, 1. 26; Prometheus Unboundy 
III, i, 26; IV, 116, 416. 

16 To Constantia, Singing. 

This poem was addressed to Clara Jane Clairmont, 
Godwin's stepdaughter, and friend of the Shelleys. She 
had an excellent voice, and was fond of musical instrimients, 
though her sense of tune is said to have been deficient. 
The lyric testifies to Shelley's appreciation of the soul of 
music. 

17 30, 31. Cf. Epipsychidion, 11. 445-456. 

17 Sonnet — Ozymandias. 

Structurally uncanonical. See Introduction, p. Ixiv. 

Diodorus, the Greek historian, tells us that the statue of 
Ozymandias was the largest in all Egypt, and bore the in- 
scription: "I am Ozymandias, king of kings; if any one 
wishes to know what I am and where I lie, let him surpass 
me in some of my exploits." 

8. "hand." The sculptor's, "heart." The king's. 

18 Lines to a Critic. 

This remonstrance was doubtless provoked by certain 
attacks upon the unre vised Laon and Cythna, of which a 
few copies were issued late in 1817. In a letter of December 
11, Shelley wrote to his publisher Oilier, who was disposed to 
withdraw from the undertaking: "I beseech you to re- 
consider the matter, for your sake no less than for my 
own. Assume the high and the secure ground of courage. 
The people who visit your shop, and the wretched bigot 
who gave his worthless custom to some other bookseller, 
are not the public." 

19 Passage of the Apennines. 

Written probably in the lonely inn at Pietra Mala, high 
in the Apennines. Miss Clairmont's journal, touching this 
experience of the travellers, remarks: " The wind is always 
high, and it howls dismally." 

9. "lay." Used, of course, for "lie," owing to the con- 
straint of rhyme. 

20 Lines Written among the Euganean Hills. 

The poem "was written," said Shelley, "after a day's 
excursion among those lovely mountains which surround 
what was once the retreat, and where is now the sepulchre, 
of Petrarch. If any one is inclined to condemn the insertion 



232 NOTES 

PAGE 

of the introductory lines, which image forth the sudden 
relief of a state of deep despondency by the radiant visions 
disclosed by the sudden burst of an Italian sunrise in 
autumn, on the highest peak of those delightful mountains, 
I can only offer as my excuse, that they were not erased at 
the request of a dear friend, with whom added years of 
intercourse only add to my apprehension of its value, and 
who would have had more right than any one to complain, 
that she has not been able to extinguish in me the very 
power of delineating sadness." The poem was written in 
large part at Este, and, according to Med win, finished at 
Naples. Mrs. Shelley wrote of Este: ''We looked from the 
garden over the wide plain of Lombardy, bounded to the 
west by the far Apennines, while to the east, the horizon 
was lost in mist}^ distance." 

20 16. A fine example of artistic repetition. 

18. ''Weltering." Moving vaguely, without direction; 
tossing. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 11. 12-14: — 

" He must not float upon his watery bier 
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, 
Without the meed of some melodious tear." 

21 43. "are." Note the error in syntax. 

23 97. Amphitrite was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, 
and wife of Neptune. 

100 sq. Comment on this splendid picture is superfluous, 
yet attention may be called to the "romantic" incor- 
porating into nature of man-built structures. Cf. Words- 
worth's Sonnet on Westminster Bridge, and Emerson's 
The Problem, 11. 25-62. 

100. The "time" of the poem is a single day. See also 
11. 71-73, 206, 285, 320-326. Cf . Browning's Colombe's Birth- 
day and Pippa Passes. 

116. "his queen." Probably a reference to the custom 
of "wedding the Adriatic," originated in 1177, by Pope 
Alexander III. After the victory of the Venetian galleys 
over the Ghibellines, led by Otho, the Pope presented the 
Doge Ziani with a ring, commanding him to wed the Adri- 
atic therewith, thus testifying the sea's subjection to Venice 
as her lord and master. 

118. "his prey." A reference to the apparently slow 
sinking of Venice. The student will recall the fall of the 
Campanile in 1902. Professor Marinelli, however, declares 
that the northern Adriatic is slowly drying up, and that 
the entire Gulf of Venice will eventually disappear, the 
mean annual increase in the delta of the River Po being 
three tenths of a mile. 

24 123. "the slave of slaves." Austria, then ruling Venice 
and virtually all of Italy. 

152. "Celtic Anarch's." Probably another reference to 



NOTES 233 

PAGE 

Austria, the term Celt long being applied to the northern 
barbarians as distinguished from the Romans. 

25 167-205. Shelley added this passage to the original manu- 
script. The reference is, of course, to Byron, who was then 
at Venice. 

178-183. Cf. Tvdth these lines Shelley's remark in a letter 
to Peacock: "That he is a great poet, I think the address 
to ocean proves." 

26 195. "Scamander." An ancient river near Troy. 

196. ''divinest Shakespeare's." Shelley was more at- 
tracted by Shakespeare than by any other English writer. 

27 223. '^brutal Celt." See note on 1. 152. 

239. "Ezzelin." Ezzelino da Romano, a Ghibelline 
leader. 

240. Cf . Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 11. 195- 
198; Milton's Paradise Lost, 11. 648 sq. 

28 285-319. Cf. with this commingling of the human spirit 
with natural phenomena — an imaginative habit of the ro- 
manticists — Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey, 11. 95-104, and 
Emerson's Each and All. Cf. also Adonais, U. 370-378. 

30 335-373. See Introduction, p. xliv. 

31 Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples. 

" At this time Shelley suffered greatly in health. He put 
himself under the care of a medical man, who promised 
great things, and made him endure severe bodily pain, 
without any good results. Constant and poignant physical 
suffering exhausted him; and though he preserved the 
appearance of cheerfulness, and often greatly enjoyed our 
wanderings in the en^drons of Naples, and our excursions 
on its suimy sea, yet many hours were passed when his 
thoughts, shadowed by illness, became gloomy, and then he 
escaped to soHtude, and in verses, which he hid from fear 
of wounding me, poured forth morbid but too natural 
bursts of discontent and sadness." — Mrs. Shelley's note. 
See Introduction, p. xli. 

32 33. Cf. Queen Mab, U. 1, 2 ; To Night, 11. 22, 24; Tenny- 
son's In Memoriam, Lyric 68, stanza 1. 

33 Lines to an Indian Air. 

A manuscript copy of tliis lyric was found on Shelley's 
body after his death. 

11. "champak." Probably jasmine. 
18. Cf. Epipsychidion, 1. 591. 

34 Love's Philosophy. 

In N'otes and Queries (January, 1868) Mr. J. H. Dixon 
relates this poem to a short French song, — " Les vents 
baisent les nuages." — Forman. 
Song — To the Men of England. 

At an open-air Reform meeting held in St. Peter's Field, 
Manchester, August 16, 1819, and dispersed by the militia, 
several casualties had occurred. Alarmist reports reached 



234 NOTES 

PAGE 

Shelley at Leghorn, and he at first anticipated a general 
English revolution. ^'It was," says Dowden, ''the hard- 
ships and sufferings of the industrious poor that especially 
claimed his sympathy, and he thought of publishing for them 
a series of popular songs which should inspire them with 
heart and hope, and perhaps awaken and direct the imagina- 
tion of the reformers. . . . The Songs and Poems for the Men 
of England, written in 1819, remained unpublished until 
several years after Shelley ^s death, when the first great 
battle for reform had been fought and won.'^ — II, 285-6. 

35 9-12. In his willingness to become, for the moment, 
a "popular" poet, Shelley has let his metaphors shift for 
themselves. 

36 England in 1819. 

1. George III reigned from 1760 to 1820. During the 
last ten years he was blind, deaf, and insane, his eldest son, 
afterward George IV, serving as Prince Regent. 
36 Ode to the West Wind. 

'* This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood 
that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that 
tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and 
animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the 
autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset, with 
a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magni- 
ficent thunder and hghtning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions. 

"The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the 
third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation 
at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes 
with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is con- 
sequently influenced by the winds which announce it." — ■ 
Shelley's note. 

'' Harmonizing under a common idea the forces of ex- 
ternal nature and the passion of the writer's individual 
heart, the stanzas, with all the penetrating power of a 
lyric, have something almost of epic largeness and grand- 
eur." — Dowden's Life, II, 299. 

Says Professor W. J. Alexander: "The terza rima (aba, 
bcb, cdc, etc.) employed in this poem is but little used in 
English poetry. The suitability here of the stanza form to 
the theme should be noted. The series of sustained waves 
of feeling, each closing in an invocation, corresponds to the 
suspended rhyme of each triplet, resolved at the close of 
each fourth stanza by the couplet, with its sense of com- 
pleteness." 

It will be noted that in the first three sections of this 
impassioned cry, the poet pursues the West Wind — so to 
speak — as it blows over land (i), and "'mid the steep 
sky's commotion" (ii), and upon the sea (iii), while in 
the two concluding sections he' passes through momentary 



NOTES 235 

PAGE 

longings to be himself resolved into each of these (iv, 
43-45) into an appeal not for translation, but for union, 
eagerly adventuring even into identification as based on 
the truth of his own spirit's oneness (^'one too like thee") 
with that of the West Wind: — 

"... Be thou, spirit fierce, 
My spiriti Be thou me, impetuous one! " 

Perhaps the words of his well-loved Ariel, sprite of air and 
fire, were haunting his memory {The Tempest j I, 2, 198, 
199; 211,212): — 

*II flam'd amazement: sometime I'd divide, 
And burn in many places." 

*• . . . the vessel, 
Then all afire with me." 

37 21. "Msenad." See note on The Sensitive Plant, 1. 34. 

38 32. Baise was an ancient Roman city and watering-place 
near Naples. 

43. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, IV, 528. 
40 Prometheus Unbound. 

See Introduction, pp. xli, Ivii, Iviii, lix, Ixiii, Ixiv, and 
Ixvi. ''The prominent feature of Shelley's theory of the 
destiny of the human species was that evil is not inherent 
in the system of the creation, but an accident that might 
be expelled. This also forms a portion of Christianity : God 
made earth and man perfect, till he, by his fall, 

* Brought death into the world and all our woe.* 

Shelley believed that mankind had only to will that there 
should be no evil, and there would be none. It is not my 
part in these Notes to notice the arguments that have been 
urged against this opinion, but to mention the fact that he 
entertained it, and was indeed attached to it with fervent 
enthusiasm. That man could be so perfectionized as to be 
able to expel evil from his own nature, and from the greater 
part of the creation, was the cardinal point of his system. 
And the subject he loved best to dwell on was the image 
of one warring with the Evil Principle, oppressed not onlv 
by it, but by all — even the good, who were deluded into 
considering evil a necessary portion of humanity ; a victim 
full of fortitude and hope arid the spirit of triumph, emanat- 
ing from a reliance in the ultimate omnipotence of Good. 
Such he had depicted in his last poem, when he made Laon 
the enemy and the victim of tyrants. He now took a more 
idealized image of the same subject. He followed certain 
classical authorities in figuring Saturn as the good principle, 
Jupiter the usurping evil one, and Prometheus as the re- 
generator, who, unable to bring mankind back to prim- 



236 NOTES 

PAGE 

itive innocence, used knowledge as a weapon to defeat 
evil, by leading mankind, beyond the state wherein they 
are sinless through ignorance, to that in which they are 
virtuous through wisdom. Jupiter punished the temerity 
of the Titan by chaining him to a rock of Caucasus, and 
causing a vulture to devour his still-renewed heart. There 
was a prophecy afloat in heaven portending the fall of 
Jove, the secret of averting which was known only to 
Prometheus; and the god offered freedom from torture 
on condition of its being communicated to him. Accord- 
ing to the mythological story, this referred to the offspring 
of Thetis, who was destined to be greater than his father. 
Prometheus at last bought pardon for his crime of enrich- 
ing mankind with his gifts, by revealing the prophecy. 
Hercules killed the vulture, and set him free; and Thetis 
was married to Peleus, the father of Achilles. 

^'Shelley adapted the catastrophe of this story to his 
peculiar views. The son greater than his father, born of the 
nuptials of Jupiter and Thetis, was to dethrone Evil, and 
bring back a happier reign than that of Saturn. Prometheus 
defies the power of his enemy, and endures centuries of 
torture; till the hour arrives when Jove, blind to the real 
event, but darkly guessing that some great good to himself 
will flow, espouses Thetis. At the moment, the Primal Power 
of the world drives him from his usurped throne, and 
Strength, in the person of Hercules, liberates Humanity, 
typified in Prometheus, from the tortures generated by evil 
done or suffered. Asia, one of the Oceanides, is the wife 
of Prometheus — she was, according to other mythological 
interpretations, the same as Venus and Nature. When the 
benefactor of mankind is liberated, Nature resumes the 
beauty of her prime, and is united to her husband, the em- 
blem of the human race, in perfect and happy union. In the 
fourth Act, the poet gives further scope to his imagination, 
and idealizes the forms of creation — such as we know 
them, instead of such as they appeared to the Greeks. 
Maternal Earth, the mighty parent, is superseded by the 
Spirit of the Earth, the guide of our planet through the 
realms of sky ; while his fair and weaker companion and 
attendant, the Spirit of the Moon, receives bliss from the 
annihilation of Evil in the superior sphere. 

"Shelley develops more particularly in the lyrics of this 
drama his abstruse and imaginative theories with regard 
to the creation. It requires a mind as subtle and penetrat- 
ing as his own to understand the mystic meanings scattered 
throughout the poem. They elude the ordinary reader 
by their abstraction and delicacy of distinction, but they 
are far from vague. It was his desi^in to write prose meta- 
physical essays on the nature of Man, which would have 
served to explain much of what is obscure in his poetry; 



NOTES 237 

PAGE 

a few scattered fragments of observations and remarks 
alone remain. He considered these philosophical views of 
JVIind and Nature to be instinct ^dth the intensest spirit 
of poetry." — From Mrs. Shelley's Note. 

''The martyrdom of a heroic lover and saviour of man- 
kind was a theme around which Shelley's highest and 
purest feelings and imaginings must gather; and for him 
such a martyrdom must needs be the pledge of the final 
victory of joy and wisdom and love." — Dowden's Life, 
II, 239. 

'' The essential thought of Shelley's creed was that the 
universe is penetrated, vitahzed, made real by a spirit, 
which he sometimes called the Spirit of Nature, but which 
is always conceived as more than Life, as that which gives 
its actuality to Life, and lastly as Love and Beauty. To 
adore this spirit, to clasp it with affection, and to blend 
with it, is, he thought, the true object of man. Therefore, 
the final union of Prometheus with Asia is the consum- 
mation of human destinies. Love was the only law Shelley 
recognized. Un terrified by the grim realities of pain and 
crime revealed in nature and society, he held fast to the 
belief that, if we could but pierce to the core of things, if 
we could but be what we might be, the world and man 
would both attain to their perfection in eternal love. What 
resolution through some transcendental harmony was ex- 
pected by Shelley for the palpable discords in the struc- 
ture of the universe, we hardly know. He did not give his 
philosophy systematic form: and his new science of love 
remains a luminous poetic vision — nowhere more bril- 
liantly set forth than in the 'sevenfold hallelujahs and 
harping symphonies' of this, the final triumph of his lyrical 
poetry." — John Adding ton Symonds's Shelley. 

"A genuine liking for Prometheus Unbound may be 
reckoned the touchstone of a man's capacity for under- 
standing lyric poetry. The world in which the action is 
supposed to move, rings with spirit voices; and what these 
spirits sing is melody more purged of mortal dross than any 
other poet's ear has caught, while listening to his own 
heart's song, or to the rhythms of the world. There are 
hymns in Prometheus, which seem to realize the miracle of 
making words, detached from meaning, the substance of a 
new ethereal music; and yet althougli their verbal har- 
mony is such, they are never devoid of definite significance 
for those who understand." — John Addington Symonds's 
Shelley. 

"Shelley came to this subject naturally and through 
years of unconscious preparation; and when the moment 
of creation came, he felt the Titanic quality ... in the 
Revolution, felt the Promethean security of victory it 
contained — felt, too, the Promethean suffering which 



238 NOTES 

PAGE 

was the heart of mankind as he saw it, surveying Europe 
in his day, and knew it in his own bosom as well. He con- 
ceived of Prometheus as mankind, of his history and fate 
as the destiny of man; and being full of that far sight of 
Prometheus which saw the victorious end — being as full 
of it as the wheel of Ezekiel was full of eyes — he saw, as 
the centre of all vision, Prometheus Unbound — the mil- 
lennium of mankind. He imagined the process of that great 
liberation and its crowning prosperities. This is his poem. 
In this poem the Revolution as a moral idea reached its 
height; that is what makes it, from the social point of 
view, the race point of view, the greatest work of the last 
century in creative imagination — for it is the summary 
and centre, in the world of art, of the greatest power in 
that century — the power of the idea of humanity." — 
George Edward Woodberry's The Torch. 

Prometheus Unbound is Shelley's greatest drama and his 
greatest poem, fit subject at once for the philosophizings 
of a Hegel or the musical genius of a Wagner. Though it 
is possible to question some of its structural ideas in truth 
of detail, the truth of its movement and aspiration is 
beyond question. Its political value is no doubt less than 
its social value, and that again less than its spiritual value. 
It offers no sure method for the renovation of life, but it 
impresses us all with the assurance and reality of renova- 
tion. Having said this, however, we must caution the student 
against a too docile acceptance of the dicta of those critics 
who can see no vitality in Shelley's social and political 
views. The truth would seem to be that although the 
poet, as a student of affairs, remained steadily faithful to the 
teachings of William Godwin, yet his matter of belief in this 
regard was far less important to him — and ought to be 
so to us — than the energy and enthusiasm of his belief, 
its spirit and its power. If he placed too little stress on the 
effortful co-operation of men in the working out of their 
long salvation, we must remember that Shelley was a 
Romantic poet and that his own experience had actually 
given him more occasion for believing in the beneficent 
dynamic of Nature than in that of his fellows. In Man, as 
the great member and expression of Nature, he believed; of 
the mental and spiritual inertia of men he was but too 
keenly aware. Nor is it by any means certain that Shelley's 
social philosophy, more particularly examined, is as in- 
adequate as it sometimes appears. It is not to be inter- 
preted as postulating a purely external impulse, but rather 
an inclusive one. Shelley's mankind, though given fluctu-r 
ating place in a vast Nature-organization, is not by any 
means a mechanicized conception. He saw and felt the 
importance of arousing humanity to active enterprise in 



NOTES 239 

PAGE 

its own hehalf , and sounded peal after peal of warning and 
entreaty in pamphlet and poem; but his eyes were habit- 
ually fixed on the great principles of Love and Wisdom and 
Virtue, abstractions which became so keenly and glowingly 
realized in his own thought that of their inherent activity 
he could entertain no doubt. Shelley's great myth-poem, 
indeed, before and between its rapid, insatiate flights, 
rests back upon a basis of ultimate and immutable law, 
that stern yet kind rightness of things of which we have 
spoken in the Introduction. There is in it the Greek sense 
of Fate, the Renaissance sense of hope, the Revolution 
sense of freedom, the Romantic sense of love, the modern 
sense of science. It completes JEschylus as England com- 
pletes Greece, and if it is not as sensitive to current know- 
ledge as some have wished, it is yet a poem of astonishingly 
self -renewing modernity, filled with the spirit of justice, 
of liberty, and of truth, — in a word, of enfranchised being. 
Jupiter is the symbol of Hindrance, Custom, Tradition; 
Prometheus, of Wisdom, Fortitude, Humanity; Asia, of 
Love and Beauty in Nature; Demogorgon, of Eternal Fate. 
Prometheus and Jupiter — protagonist and antagonist — 
are as sharply opposed as, in more concrete drama, are 
Hamlet and Claudius, Othello and lago, Beatrice and Count 
Cenci, and the opposition is far more important here be- 
cause its issues are felt to be decisive. Yet the dramatic 
structure of the poem is of less value than its emotional 
power, — the truth of its instinct, the pure lyric fervour 
of its utterance, the credible triumph of its great finale. 

In the Notes that follow the comparisons with the 
Prometheus Vinctus of iEschylus refer to Mrs. Browning's 
. translation, which is, perhaps, the one most easily access- 
ible to the average student. The original text and the 
admirable versions by J. S. Blackie and by E. H. Plumptre 
should be consulted, whenever possible. 

ACT I 

44 Scene. The time references here and in general through- 
out the poem are not without their symbolic value. 

2. ^^One." The speaker. Cf. 11. 265, 274, 493. 

45 9. ^'Eyeless in hate." Blinded by bitterness. Cf. King 
Lear, III, 1,8. The phrase modifies '' thou'' in 1. 10. It is a 
Promethean taunt of the dramatic moment quite in keeping 
with the words ^schylus makes his hero speak to lo con- 
cerning Zeus, his persecutor and her lover: 

"/o. By whom shall his imperial sceptred hand 
Be emptied so? 

Prometheufi, Himself shall spoil himself. 
Through his idiotic counsels." 

— Mrs. Browning's translation, Prometheus Bound, 11. 886- 
888. 



240 NOTES 

PAGE 

45 24-43. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 99-127. 

34. "Heaven's winged hound." The vulture. An 
^schylean phrase. 

46 40. "When the rocks spht.'' Cf. Prometheus Bound, 
11. 1205-09: 

"... For at first 
The Father will split up this jut of rock 
With the great thunder and the bolted flame. 
And hide thy body where a hinge of stone 
Shall catch it like an arm." 

50-52. For similar force in invective, cf. Gray's The 
Bard, 11. 1, 6, 25, 97-99. 

53. This line contains the first suggestion of the character 
of the Shelleyan Prometheus as excelling that of the 
^schylean. The hero of the Prometheus Vinctus endures 
and defies. Shelley's Prometheus adds to the just and 
suffering spirit of his prototype a modern sympathy and 
magnanimity gained through long discipline, and wins no 
higher tribute than that of Jupiter himself. — Act III, Sc. 1, 
11. 64-69. 

54. Forman recommends the omission of "the'' as a 
metrical improvement. It seems, however, that the crowd- 
ing haste of the line accords happily with its meaning. 

63. "vibrated." Note the nervous effect induced by the 
accent-shifting. 

47 74-106. The responses are made by each Voice as ad- 
jured by Prometheus. All the Voices are in sympathy 
with the Titan, like the iEschylean chorus, but their na- 
ture-equilibrium is shudderingiy disturbed by the conflict 
between Jupiter and his victim, as brought to focus in. the 
memory of the awful curse, of which they are silently 
unforgetful. 

95-98. Cf. Coleridge's Rime oj the Ancient Mariner, 
11. 560-569. 

48 112-113. Prometheus again refers to the curse he uttered 
against Jupiter, which the Voices dare not repeat. 

49 137. "love." The subject is the "thou" of 1. 136, in the 
present editor's judgment, not "I." In 11. 113 sq. Prome- 
theus accuses his mother Earth of scorning him. Her 
nearer movement and dimly compassionate voice now 
reassure him, and he acknowledges her love. Forman, 
however, prefers "I" as the subject. 

51 175-177. Cf. The Sensitive Plant, 11. 224-251. 
191-218. A finely imaginative picture of the fixity of the 

Past in Eternal Memory. The suggestion is Platonic. 

52 212. "Hades." Pluto. "Typhon." A giant resister of 
Zeus, destroyed by his enemy. 

213. "Evil." Note the allegorical suggestion. Contrast 
11. 219-222. 



NOTES 241 

PAGE 

52 222 sq. The constant presence of lon^ and Panthea, sis- 
ters of the remote and greater Asia, brings to Prometheus 
something of the consolation her own presence would 
assure. These spirits serve the purpose of a chorus, as now, 
lyrically anticipating the appearance of the Phantasm of 
Jupiter. 

54 273. Zeus owed his throne to Prometheus. Cf. 11. 382-3; 
Prometheus Bound, 11. 240-269. Note the allegory here, — 
all power derives its authority from the spirit of truth and 
justice. 

56 303. ^'It doth repent me." The operation of the law 
of necessity expressed in the curse as inevitable is not 
repented, but rather the spirit of malevolence found in 
11.286-295. Cf. 1.53 and note. The lyric outbursts of despair 
that follow suggest the inability of the purely natural 
mind of antiquity — facing the fact of Prometheus' cap- 
tivity — to appreciate the meaning and power of unself- 
ishness. Cf. Matthew Arnold's sonnet, In Harmony with 
Nature. Cf. also 11. 394-401. 

312-313. Note the extraordinary emotional power of 
these iterations as prolonging the sense of failure and 
despair. 

324. ^'serpent-cinctured wand." The caduceus, or wand 
of Mercury, surmounted by wings and having two serpents 
twined about it. 

325. Mercury, or Hermes, tempts and taunts the ^Eschy- 
lean Prometheus. Shelley, however, makes him well dis- 
posed toward the sufferer. 

57 343. "the Sonof Maia." Mercury. There is a vindictive 
suggestion here of Jovean vengeance overtaking hesitancy, 
as in Strength's words to Hephaestus, Prometheus Bound, 
11. 73-75: 

" Dost thou flinch again. 
And breathe groans for the enemies of Zeus ? 
Beware lest thine own pity find thee out." 

58 347. ''Geryon." ''Gorgon." Fabulous monsters. Ger- 
yon had three heads and three bodies, and was slain by 
Hercules. The Gorgons were three sisters, Stheno, Euryale, 
and Medusa. Medusa was slain by Perseus. 

348. "Chimsera." A fire-belching monster, destroyed 
by Bellerophon. " Sphinx." The Sphinx was sent by Juno 
to the Thebans, and devoured those of them who tried and 
failed to solve her enigmas. CEdipus solved one at last, 
and the Sphinx destroyed herself. 

354. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 21-22: 

'• Thee loath, I loath must rivet fast in chains 
Against this rocky height unclomb by man," etc. 

59 372. "a secret." The secret is that Jupiter will take a 
wife — Thetis — whose child — Demogorgon — will cause 
his sire's downfall. 



242 NOTES 

PAGE 

59 399. ''the Sicilian's." Damocles, a flattering courtier, 
over whose banqueting-chair the tyrant Dionysius sus- 
pended a keen sword by a horsehair, as a symbol of the 
insecurity of place and power. 

61 427-428. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 1107, 1146 sq. 
438-439. These lines, witnessing the departure of Mer- 
cury on his mission (see 11. 366-371), are memorably beau- 
tiful. 

62 446-447. Cf. Macbeth, Act III, Sc. 4, 11. 106, 107: 

"... Hence, horrible shadow 1 
Unreal mockery, hence ! " 

455, 456. A favourite figure with Shelley. See note on 
Adonais, 1. 297. 

63 465. Cf. from Bacon's essay, Of Deformity: "Certainly 
there is a consent between the body and the mind, and 
where nature erreth in the one she ventureth in the other.'' 
Cf. also Shakespeare's Richard III, Act I, Sc. 1, 11. 14-31. 

64 496-521. Note the evil heaviness of the flight and move- 
ment metrically suggested in this hag chorus. Cf. the Witch 
scenes in Macbeth, Act I, Scenes 1 and 3; Act IV, Sc. 1; 
and Faust, Walpurgis Night, Part I, Sc. 21. 

66 540-577. The chants of the Choruses accompany the 
climax of the spiritual suffering of Prometheus, as he sees 
into the future tragedy of Christ (11. 547-566), and of the 
failure of the French Revolution (11. 568-577), both events, 
as Shelley believed, wrested from the control of Good and 
perverted to Evil. Prometheus is tempted thus to doubt the 
ultimate value of his own work for mankind. 

69 598-616. Prometheus addresses the vision of Christ. 
Shelley's hatred of ecclesiasticism, of formal and legal 
religion, finds congenial expression here. See Introduc- 
tion, pp. xix and xx. 

598. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 301-302: 

** Chorus. And truly for such sins Zeus tortures thee, 
And will remit no anguish?" 

70 628. Though this is a projected picture, it reflects back 
also upon the present situation in the drama — Prometheus 
wanting Asia's aid, and Asia Demogorgon's, to complete 
their freedom of spirit and of action. 

635. The invincible goodness of the Titan conquers the 
Fury's power longer to molest him. This great scene in- 
evitably suggests the Temptation of Christ in the wilder- 
ness. See Matthew iv, 1-11; Luke iv, 1-13. 

640. A not infrequently recurring mood of Shelley finds 
brief expression here. 

641. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 1245-1248. 

71 647-656. Another picture of the French Revolution. 
665-672. The rhyme — not employed in the dialogue 

touching the Furies (11. 440-443 and 522-525) — relieves 



NOTES 243 

PAGE 

the verse and sympathetically anticipates the coming of 
the Spirits. ^' Their beauty gives me voice." (1. 760.) 

73 695 sq. The Spirits have insight into the final triumph 
of Good, as the Furies into the long-persisting power of 
Evil. Each Spirit, instancing an action or attitude of high 
good, seeks to justify the faith of all the Spirits. 

709-715. Cf, The Cloud, 11. 67-72. 

719, 720. Cf. Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act I, Sc. 2, 
11. 195-212. 

74 738-752. See Introduction, p. Ixiii. 

75 757. Cf. line 672. 

770. Cf. Adonais, 11. 399-401. 

76 786. Cf. Macbeth, Act I, Sc. 2, 11. 11, 12; Sc. 3, 1. 38. 

77 805. ^'responses." Accented on the first syllable. Cf. 
Act II, 11. 171, 525. 

78 820, 821. The Furies' torments and the Spirits' consola- 
tion are alike incomplete. The Furies have derided the 
idea of love, and even the Spirits cannot ignore its apparent 
failures, yet in it alone lies hope. The memory of Pro- 
metheus and the words of Panthea both turn his thoughts 
toward Asia, the principle of that never-wearied Love 
which animates and sustains the universe. See Adonais, 
11. 481-486. 

833, 834. Love, if she is to persist, must be united to 



Wisdom. 



ACT II 

SCENE I 



79 12. The short line dwells for a moment with sad intensity 
upon the idea it expresses. 

31. ''The shadow of that soul." Panthea, messenger 
between Prometheus and Asia, sits within the shadow of 
the Titan. To Asia she is the shadow of Prometheus, to 
Prometheus the shadow of Asia. See 1. 70. 

80 36. Cf. 11. 61-92. 

81 67. Cf. Epipsychidion, 11. 587-591. 

94-106. lone felt what Panthea felt, but more dimly, 
and did not understand the meaning of her dream. lone 
represents Hope. Panthea, the more active of the two 
sisters, symbolizes Faith — the faith that Shelley felt in 
the ultimate 'Godness' of things. Note the derivation. 

82 113, 120. These two lines again unite Prometheus and 
Asia through Panthea. See note on 1. 31 above. 

114-117. A beautiful picture of Faith. 

83 131-208. ''Follow! Follow!" The Dream utters the 
words of progress that all Nature sounds and echoes, the 
chorus-words that accompany for ever the " eternal process 
moving on." The beauty of Shelley's idea, or, rather, of 
its expression here, is extraordinarily moving. 



244 NOTES 

PAGE 

83 140. See note on Adonais, 1. 140. 

84 156-159. Cf. Ode to the West Wind, 11. 57-61, 



SCENE II 

87 ^' Love and Faith are pursuing their journey through all 
human experience: and first they pass through the sphere 
of the Senses, or external life (Semichorus I) ; then through 
that of the Emotions (Semichorus II); finally, through 
that of the Reason and the Will (Semichorus III)." — 
Vida D. Scudder. 

221. ^'anemone." See note on The Question, 1. 9. 
232 sq. See Adonais, 11. 145, 146. 

88 248. See Act II, Sc. 1,1. 67. 

89 270. A reference, no doubt, to the higher environment 
of Scene III. 

272-277. An evident reminiscence from The Tempest, 
always Shelley's admiration. See Act I, Sc. 2, 11. 386-394. 

281 . '' oozy." A favourite word with Shelley, as " odours " 
also in 1. 294. 

90 298. ''thwart." Perverse; ill-natured. ''Silenus." A 
prophesying demigod, crowned with flowers, and usually 
represented as riding on an ass. 



SCENE III 

90 314. ''Maenads." See note on The Sensitive Plant, 1. 34. 

91 326. Note the great beauty of the figure here. 

93 384. This line keys the song of the Spirits. Asia and 
Panthea are now to descend to the ultimate Source and 
Ground of all things, to leave sensible Nature and confront 
the Law of Nature's being. 

SCENE IV 

94 411. Demogorgon's answers have the remoteness and 
changeless truth of their speaker's character. 

415-421. As the passage stands, ''which" in line 415 
seems to have no predicate. Shelley, however, surely 
intended "fills" as the predicate. Rossetti makes "when" 
(1.415) "at," and Forman suggests "hear" (1. 416) for 
"or." If "breathe" were adopted for "in" in 1. 416, the 
original image would perhaps be most apparent, though 
any of these changes would, of course, be hazardous. 

95 428. Cf. Act I, 11. 511-513; Act III, Sc. 4, 1. 442. 
435. Note the rising emotional insistence in Asia's repe- 
titions. She is face to face with the most obstinate of 
mysteries. 



NOTES 245 

PAGE 

96 446-448. These lines admirably express the Promethean 
character, — wisdom, and friendship for humanity. 

446-461. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 241-277. 

462-503. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 269-300; 512-575. 

464. ''Nepenthe." The Homeric drug of forge tfulness. 
Cf. Poe's The Raven, 1. 83. ;'Moly.'' A fabled plant given 
Ulysses by Hermes to save him from Circe's power. See the 
Odyssey, Book X, 11. 302-306. ''Amaranth.'' An imagin- 
ary fadeless flower. It appears in Spenser's Faerie Queene^ 
Book III, Canto 6, stanza 45; and in Milton's Lycidas, 

I. 149, and Paradise Lost, Book III, 1. 353. 

97 489. Cf. Mont Blanc, 1. 49 sq. See Introduction, pp. Ix, Ixi. 

98 515-523. Cf. Act. I, 1. 144. Behind and beyond Zeus, 
said ^schylus, stands Necessity (cf. Prometheus Bound, 

II. 583-586), which is ultimate Lord of all. Shelley, with 
modern idealism, makes Love the Lord of Necessity 
(1. 523). To him, Love is the final idea of power, destiny, 
and Godhood. Cf . the following interesting passages : — 

" The God of Power, even before we learn quite positively 
to conceive him as the God of Love, sometimes appears 
to us, despite his all-real Oneness, as somehow requiring 
another and higher if much dimmer God beyond him, 
either to explain his existence-ofTo justify his being. This 
contradictory and restless search for a God beyond God, 
this looking for a reality higher still than our highest 
already defined power, appears in several cases, in our 
poet's [Browning's] work, as a sort of inner disease, about 
the very conception of the God of Power, and as the begin- 
ning of the newer and nobler faith. The God beyond God 
is in the end what gets defined for us as the God of Love. 
. . . The God beyond God appears in Caliban's theology, 
very explicitly, as ' the something over Setebos that made 
him, or he, maybe, found and fought.' ' There may be some- 
thing quiet o'er his head.' . . . In far nobler form, Ixion rises 
from Zeus to the higher law and life beyond him. . . . He 
[Guido] falls helpless at last, and, even w^hile he wrestles 
beneath hell's most overwhelming might, still, like Ixion, 
like Karshish, and like David, he conceives at last the 
Over-God, afar off, beyond the great gulf fixed; and this 
Over-God, mentioned in his final cry for help after all the 
powers, — after Grand Duke, Pope, Cardinal, Christ, 
Maria, God, — is PompiHa. . . . Euripides, too, in his 
way, found the Over-God, and found him in the world of 
love, beyond nature, and yet within man's heart." — 
Josiah Royce: Browning's Theism (Boston Browning 
Society Papers, 1886-1897). 

** There is an Entity, a Soul-Entity, as yet unrecognized 
. . . it is in addition to the existence of the soul; in addi- 
tion to immortality ; and beyond the idea of the deity. . . . 
I conclude that there is an existence, a something higher 



246 NOTES 

PAGE 

than soul — higher, better, and more perfect than deity. 
Earnestly I pray to find . . . this Highest Soul, this greater 
than deity, this better than god." — Richard Jefferies: 
The Story of My Heart. 

" When we have broken our god of tradition, and ceased 
from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with 
his presence." — Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Over-Soul. 
99 536. Contrast Coleridge 'ws Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 
11. 446-451. 

545. The Hour of Jupiter's dethronement, whose car 
Demogorgon now ascends (11. 553-558). 
100 562. The Hour of Prometheus' restoration. 

566-577. Note the light and confident swiftness of these 
exquisite lines. As Demogorgon goes to banish Jupiter 
(Act III, Sc. 1), Asia and Panthea ascend to witness the 
release of Prometheus (Act III, Sc. 3). 



SCENE V 

101 587, 588. The Sun-God awaits the conclusion of the 
journey of Love, Child of Light (1. 631), whose own being 
illumines the cloud about the car (11. 588-591). 

102 597-608. Aphrodite (Venus), the goddess of love, was so 
created. Asia, its greatest Spirit-Exemplar, absorbs into 
her own being all other symbols and dispensers of love. 

103 620. Cf. Browning's Christmas Eve, v, 11. 23-25: — 

"For the loving worm within its clod 
Were diviner than a loveless god 
Amid his worlds, I will dare to say." 

625-648. The Voice of Prometheus anticipates the com- 
ing of Asia. 

630. In Hawthorne's Marble Faun, he speaks (Book II, 
chapter 19) of the lack of frankness in Italian eyes: ^' ' Very 
strange, indeed, signor,' she replied, meekly, without turn- 
ing away her eyes in the least, but checking his insight of 
them at about half an inch below the surface." Shelley 
wrote to Peacock of what, on the contrary, seemed to him 
"the mazy depth of colour behind colour with which the 
intellectual women of England and Germany entangle the 
heart in soul-inspiring labyrinths." 

104 649-687. The song responds to the song of the Voice 
of Prometheus. There linger in it some notes of the Spen- 
serian music. Cf. The Faerie Queene, Book II, Canto 12. 
Cf., for similar symbolic suggestions — the regaining of 
"the glory and the freshness" — Wordsworth's Ode on 
Intimations of Immortality. Cf. also Henry Vaughan's The 
Retreat, 11. 21-32: 

"O how I long to travel back, 
And tread again that ancient track I 



NOTES 247 



PAGE 



That I might once more reach that plain 
Where first I left my glorious train ; 
From whence th' enlightened spirit sees 
That shady City of palm trees ! 
But ahl my soul with too much stay 
Is drunk, and staggers in the way : — 
Some men a forward motion love, 
But I by backward steps would move ; 
And when this dust falls to the urn, 
In that state I came, return." 

104 674. ''Harmonizing." Accented on the second syllable. 

105 687. The antecedent of ''which" is "shapes." , The 
thought is that the shapes are so bright — " somewhat 
like thee" — that one cannot bear to look at them, and 
yet, once seen, their beauty destroys the beholder's rest. 



ACT III 

SCENE I 

106 25. "Idsean Ganymede." Ganymede was a beautiful 
Phrygian youth who was carried up from Mount Ida to 
succeed Hebe as cup-bearer to Jupiter. 

26. "daedal." See note on Mont Blanc, 1. 86. 

40. "him." The soldier Sabellus. "Numidian seps." 
Seps is the name of a species of deadly serpents. See 
Lucan's Pfiarsalia, IX, for the allusion. 

43. Cf. Dry den's Under Mr, Milton's Picture, 11. 5, 6. 

107 61. Note the wrath and growing fear indicated by 
Jupiter's change of address as contrasted with 1. 51, in 
which anticipative though as yet undefined dread is sug- 
gested. 

64-69. In these words, following the eloquent silence of 
Jupiter's recognition of his doom, "the wheel has come 
full circle." His appeal to the name of Prometheus is one 
of the most impressive dramatic moments in the drama. 
The Evil that opposed and oppressed the Good recognizes 
explicitly the superior power of its victim, and implores 
succour therefrom. Cf. Act I, 1. 305. 

108 72-74. Cf. The Revolt of Islam, Canto 1, stanzas 6-14. 
81. Associate Jupiter's "ever, f»r ever" with the same 

words of Prometheus, Act I, 11. 23, 30, 636. 



SCENE II 

109 94-100. Cf. Matthew Arnold's Sohrah and Rustum, 11. 
556-572. 

94. As Forman suggests, "sinks" is understood after 
"eagle." 



248 NOTES 

PAGE 

109 107. '' Proteus." A famous sea-god, on whom Neptune 
bestowed the gift of prophecy, and who assumed various 
and perplexing shapes. 

SCENE III 

110 139. Cf. Act II, Sc. 5, 11. 625, 631. 

111 143 SQ. Shelley's longing for the crystallization — so to 
speak — of high moments finds frequent expression in both 
his life and his poetry. He was always on the verge of dis- 
covering a personal as well as a social Eden. Cf. Epipsychi- 
dion, 11. 513-591; and the following passage from Dowden's 
Life, vol. I, p. 127: '"We must stay here,' whispered 
Shelley — 'stay for ever.' This 'for ever' became after- 
wards a jest between the friends; for all Shelley's move- 
ments, sudden and erratic as the starts of a meteor — one 
of those that 

' Caper 
On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit * — 

were to conduct him to some resting-place where he should 
abide 'for ever.'" 

At the same time, we can hardly agree with Miss Scudder 
that this passage has a " merely pastoral prettiness," nor 
accept her stricture on 1. 157 because it seems to be out 
of harmony with the theory of evolution. " Ourselves un- 
changed" expresses a common and here justly dramatic 
longing for peace and rest after long spiritual toil and suf- 
fering. Cf. 11. 194-196 as completing the meaning. Cf. also 
III, 4, 501-512. 

148. "frozen tears." Stalactites and stalagmites. 

112 175, 176. "Enna." See note on Song of Proserpine, 
Enna was a Sicilian town in the "Himera" country. 

198. "Proteus." See note on Act III, Sc. 2, 1. 107. 

113 206, 214. Cf. Act II, Sc. 1, 11. 156-159. 

211. Cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Sc. 1, 
11. 172, 173; The Tempest, Act IV, Sc. 1, 11. 44-47; Act V, 
Sc. 1, 11. 102, 103. 

114 246, 247. See note on Adonais, 11. 348-351. Cf. the 
sonnet beginning "Lift not the painted veil." See also 
Act III, Sc. 4, 1. 498. 

115 285. Cf. The Tempest, Act IV, Sc. 1, 1. 184; Act V, Sc. 1, 
1. 241; A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Sc. 2, 1. 244. 

287. "Nysa." Scene of the worship of Bacchus, who was 
sometimes called Nysaeus. "Maenad." See note on The 
Sensitive Plant, 1. 34. 

116 298. "Praxitelean." Praxiteles was a peculiarly skilful 
and sympathetic Greek sculptor living nearly 500 years 
before Christ. Hawthorne has several interesting refer- 
ences to him in The Marble Faun. 

305. "the night of life." Cf. Adonais, 1. 344. 



NOTES 249 

SCENE IV 
PAGE 

116 314. ^' the delicate spirit. '^ *' This spirit has been likened 
to Goethe's Euphorion, in the second part of Faust, al- 
though of course it has a wider meaning than the poet- 
child of Faust and Helena. The old, half inorganic Gaia, 
the crude material earth, is replaced, now that the harmony 
of man and nature has been restored, by this dainty and 
more rational spirit, who, childish at first, grows into swift 
maturity of intelHgence and love by the end of Act IV.'' 
— VidaD. Scudder. 

117 327. The bite of the dipsas serpent caused intolerable 
thirst. See Lucan's Pharsalia, IX. 

118 348-351. Of. Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 1, 11. 70-76. 

359. "Well." The rather abrupt use of this colloquial 
expletive may be dramatically justified by the Spirit's 
quick, irrepressible boyishness, his eagerness to speak. 
Cf. 1. 340. 

363. Cf. Act III, Sc. 3, 11. 209-216. 

376-385. Cf. from Browning's Paracelsus, in the last 
long utterance of Paracelsus, the passage beginning 

"In my own heart love had not been made wise." 

119 381, 382. Cf. Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 
11. 125-126; 238-239; 272-291. 

404. '' darkling." Cf. King Lear, Act I, Sc. 4, 1. 207. 

120 418. The "on" after "pasturing" is supplied at For- 
man's suggestion. 

420. " Phidian." Phidias is the most famous of the 
Greek sculptors. 

427. " amphisbaenic snake." One having a head at each 
extreme. 

121 432. "As I have said" is a strangely commonplace 
phrase for so sensitive a master of words as Shelley. 

434-512. A passionately beautiful prophecy of the 
triumph of Love over Evil in mankind, the passing of the 
mechanical and tyrannous in law, religion and custom. 
Cf. , for the philosophical weakness involved, the Introduc- 
tion, p. Ixvii. Yet Shelley's poetry must not be interpreted 
as ignoring the value of moral effort. 

442. Cf. Act I, 11. 511-513; Act II, Sc. 4, 1. 428. 

457-460. Shelley's condemnation of social insincerity is 
a feeling one, as it had cause to be. What success of scheme 
or manoeuvre, he felt, gained at the expense of one's self- 
respect and moral integrity, can compare with an unstained 
freedom of soul? For himself, as man and poet, he believed 
that honesty of speech and deed is the instinctive attitude 
and expression of the liberal soul. Cf. Tennyson's In 
Memoriam, Lyric 110, 11. 4-7. 

122 481. "imaged" is the past tense. 

123 498. See note on Act III, Sc. 3, 11. 246, 247. 
504, 505. Cf. Act I, 1. 493. 



250 NOTES 

ACT IV 

PAGE 

123 ''At first he completed the drama in three acts. It was 
not till several months after, when at Florence, that he 
conceived that a fourth act, a sort of hymn of rejoicing 
in the fulfilment of the prophecies with regard to Prome- 
theus, ought to be added to complete the composition." 
— From Mrs. Shelley's note. 

It is strange that Sidney Lanier, a critic so generally 
discerning, should have written as follows of this fourth 
act: ''Act IV is the most amazing piece of surplusage in 
literature; the catastrophe has been reached long ago in the 
third act, Jove is in eternal duress, Prometheus has been 
liberated and has gone with Asia and Panthea to his eternal 
paradise above the earth, and a final radiant picture of the 
reawakening of man and nature under the new regime has 
closed up the whoie with the effect of a transformation- 
scene. Yet, upon all this, Shelley drags in Act IV, which 
is simply leaden in action and color alongside of Act III, 
and in which the voices of unseen spirits, the chorus of 
Hours, lone, Panthea, Demogorgon, the Earth and the 
Moon pelt each other Mth endless sweetish speeches that 
rain like ineffectual comfits in a carnival of silliness." — • 
The English Novel, pp. 103, 104. 

William Michael Rossetti, on the other hand, finds it 
"difficult to speak highly enough of the fourth act so far 
as lyrical fervour and lambent play of imagination are con- 
cerned, both of them springing from ethical enthusiasm. 
It is the combination of these which makes this act the 
most surprising structure of lyrical faculty, sustained at an 
almost uniform pitch through a very considerable length 
of verse, that I know of in any literature. One ought perhaps 
to except certain passages, taken collectively, in Dante's 
Paradiso.'' 

Certainly, if Lanier's criticism were to stand, it would 
become necessary to curtail some of Shakespeare's plays 
and Thackeray's novels, as concluding with other than 
structurally necessary passages. Though it is true that 
the essential dramatic action is ended with the third act 
of Prometheus, yet the drama itself is incomplete, for the 
movement has been directed toward a catastrophe so 
stupendous and revolutionary that the reader instinctively 
feels — as Shelley felt — the need of another act, both to 
give reality in celebrant music to the central idea of the 
entire drama, and to relieve overcharged emotions. If 
Act III had been allowed to remain as the concluding act, 
the finale would have been one of ungrateful and almost 
unconvincing abruptness, and the aesthetic result one of 
a surprise and joy so unrelieved as to be almost painful. 
The "silver lining" apparent in the coming of Fortinbras 



NOTES 251 

PAGE 

after the catastrophe in Hamlet, hinting at the redemption 
of the tragic idea, and the exultant strains of Shelley's 
final act, serve alike one prime purpose, — the making of 
both creations more artistically credible. 

Panthea and lone here serve the function of an inter- 
linking and wonderingly interpretative chorus between 
the Spirit-songs and the duet of Earth and Moon, and 
again between these and the great injunctions of Demo- 
gorgon. 

127 73-76. For the figure cf. Act I, Sc. 1, 1. 456; The Cenci, 
Act I, Sc. 2, 1. 14; Adonais, 1. 297; Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 2, 

I. 250. 

128 116. "dffidal.'' See note on Mont Blanc, 1. 86. Cf. 
Act III, Sc. 1, 1. 26; Act IV, 1. 416. 

121, 122. Contrast Lines Written among the Euganean 
Hills, 11. 1-8; 66-69. 
132 192. Cf. Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 11. 
267-268: — 

'* His eyen twinkled in his heed aright. 
As doon the sterres in the frosty night." 

206-235. With this vision of the Moon cf. The Cloud, 

II. 45-58. 

213. "Regard." Are regarded as; appear. 

214-217. Cf. The Cloud, 11. 21-24. 
134 266-268. Cf. Shakespeare's King Henry V, Act II, Sc. 3, 
I. 16. 

281. 'Valueless." Invaluable. 
136 319 sq. This spiritual coming together of Earth and 
Moon at once indicates the new and rapid grow^th of each 
under the law of love and satisfies the prediction of Asia 
in Act III, Sc. 4, 11. 394-398. The speakers are surely the 
Spirit of the Earth and the Spirit of the Moon. This is the 
new Earth of Act III, Sc. 4, the freed and rejuvenated 
spirit of Scene 3, not the old Earth of Act I. In this final 
act it has become "old enough" in its new life (cf. Asia's 
words in Act III, Sc. 4, 1. 399) for complete delight and 
triumph, ^sthetically, this is a valuable study in inter- 
changed metres, and the student should carefully examine 
the measures as corresponding to the presences and con- 
sciousnesses of Earth and Moon. Cf . Addison's famous ode, 
The Spacious Firmament on High, as exhibiting a brief mo- 
ment of similar spiritual insight. 

138 370-423. Literature contains no hymn of humanity 
more inspiring than this. 

378. Cf. 1. 245. 

139 406. Cf. Coleridge's Love, 11. 1-4: 

'• All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
All are but ministers of Love. 
And feed his sacred flame." 



252 NOTES 

PAGE 

141 453. Cf. Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, 11. 59, 60. 

142 473. '^ Maenad." See note on The Sensitive Plant, 1. 34. 

474. '' Agave." Daughter of Cadmus, founder of Thebes. 

475. "Cadmsean." See note on Ode to Liberty, 1. 92. 
145 554 sq. Demogorgon's great utterance touches the root 

serenity that both conditions and is produced by discipline 
through Evil. The student will compare the Shakespeare 
of The Tempest and The Winter's Tale with the Shakespeare 
of Hamlet and Lear. Both sorrow and joy are now tem- 
pered and controlled to a music undespairing and unexult- 
ant, but strong and calm and kind. Shelley's own firmest 
belief in the manner of Man's redemption is here expressed. 

147 The World's Wanderers. 

In Forman's opinion a stanza is wanting, the last word 
of which should rhyme with ''billow." 

148 Song (** Rarely, rarely comest thou"). 

^ Though this lyric is usually grouped with the poems of 

1821, there exists at Harvard an autograph MS. dated 
"Pisa, May, 1820." 

149 19. Note the metrical means employed to induce the 
''merry measure." 

38-9. Shelley disliked the ordinary forms and conven- 
tions of "society." 

150 48. Cf. " When the lamp is shattered;' IL 21-4. 

150 Song of Proserpine. 

In Greek mythology Persephone (Roman, Proserpine) 
was the daughter of Zeus (Jupiter) and Demeter (Ceres). 
While gathering flowers on the plains of.Enna, in Sicily, 
with Artemis and Athena, she was seized by JPluto, god 
of the dead, and carried off to become Queen of Hades. 
She was permitted, however, to return to her mother during 
a portion of each year, and symbolizes vegetable life. Her 
story is told by Hesiod and Ovid. Cf . Swinburne's Hymn to 
Proserpine. 

151 Autumn: A Dirge. 
10. Cf. Dirge for the Year, 1. 10. 

152 The Question. 
The sensuous beauty of this poem suggests comparison 

with Keats's Ode to a Nightingale. 

1-8. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, II, 1, 1-12. 

9. "wind-flowers." Anemones. (From ^j/e^tos, wind.) 

10. "Arcturi." So-called because ever-blooming. The 
constellation of Arcturus never sets. 

9-32. Cf . the famous flower-passages in Spenser's Faerie 
Queene, Book III, Canto 6, stanza 45; Shakespeare's A 
Midsummer NigM s Dream, Act II, Sc. 1, 11. 249-252; Keats's 
Ode to a Nightingale, stanza 5; Milton's Lycidas,\\. 142-151; 
Bacon's Essay Of Gardens. 

13. "that tall flower." Probably the tulip. 

21. "Our language has no line," says Palgrave, "modu- 
lated with more subtle sweetness." 



J 



NOTES 253 

PAGE 

152 27. *' sedge." Coarse grass or flags growing on the banks 
of lakes and rivers. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 1. 104. 
/" 153 Hymn of Apollo. 

This and the succeeding Hymn were intended for use in 
a drama of Williams's. Apollo and Pan are contending be- 
fore Tmolus for a prize in music. Apollo was the son of 
Zeus and Leto, and was the god of the sun, of divination, 
medicine, music, poetry, etc. (See 11. 30-34.) 
Vl54 Hymn of Pan. 

The god Pan in Greek mythology was a son of Hermes 
and Callisto. He controlled the fields and woods, the flocks 
and the herds, and is traditionally represented as having 
horns and goat-like legs and feet. He was a master-musician, 
the inventor of ''Pan's pipes," or the shepherd's flute. 
For circumstances of composition see note on Hymn of 
Apollo. Cf. Mrs. Browning's A Musical Instrument. 
155 11. ''Tmolus." The god of Mount Tmolus, in Lydia, 
father of Tantalus, and judge in a musical contest between 
Pan and Apollo. 

13. " Peneus." Or, Salembria, a river in Sicily. 

14. "Tempe." A vale in Thessaly, separating Olympus 
from Ossa. 

15. "Pelion." A mountain in Thessaly, fabled to have 
been piled on Ossa, another mountain, by the giants, and 
directed against Olympus. 

16. "Sileni." Satyrs and followers of Bacchus. "Syl- 
vans." Wood-spirits. " Fauns." Creatures of Latin myth- 
ology, resembling the Greek satyrs. 

26. "daedal." See note on Mont Blanc, 1. 86. 

30. "Msenalus." A mountain in Arcadia, the original 
y seat of Pan. 
\yi56 Arethusa. 

Arethusa was a fountain in Ortygia, near Sicily, and 
Alpheus a river in the ancient Peloponnesus, whose course 
was at times subterranean. The legend therefore arose 
that Alpheus, the river-god, became enamoured of the 
nymph Arethusa, while she bathed in the stream, and 
pursued her, whereupon she was changed by Artemis, or 
Diana, into the Ortygian fountain. Alpheus continued 
his pursuit under "earth and ocean." Cf. Milton's Arcades, 
11. 29-31: — 

" . . that renowned flood, so often sung, 
Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluice. 
Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse." 

Cf. also Milton's Lycidas, 11. 85, 132; and Coleridge's Kuhla 
Khan: — 

*' Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Through caverns measureless to man 
Down to a sunless sea." 



254 NOTES 

PAGE 

156 3. '' Acroceraunian/' Acroceraunia was the ancient 
name of a promontory of Epirus. 

24. ^' Ery man thus." An Arcadian mountain in the 
Peloponnesus. 

157 60. "unvalued." Invaluable. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 
L 176: — 

" And hears the unexpressive [inexpressible] nuptial song." 

Cf. also Ode to Liberty, 1. 51; Prometheus Unbound, IV, 
281, 378. 

158 74. "Enna's." See note on Song of Proserpine. 

158 The Cloud. 

It was natural that Shelley's genius should take delight 
in things aerial, — birds, balloons, lightning, stars, winds, 
clouds. The sympathy shown in this familiar lyric with 
the *' being and becoming" of the cloud testifies to the 
immediacy of his nature- vision, to his kinship with Blake 
and Browning rather than with Bryant or even, in general, 
Wordsworth. 

159 11, 12. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, IV, 181-4. 

160 45. Cf. Letter to Maria Gisborne, 11. 69, 70: — 

•♦ . . . when from the moist moon rains 
The inmost shower of its white fire." 

45 sq. Note the difference in thought between the cloud- 
drawn picture of the moon and the mortal's melancholy 
fancy. Cf. To the Moon and The Waning Moon, and cf. 
also Sidney's admirable sonnet, "With how sad steps, O 
moon, thou climb'st the skies!" 

52-4. Cf. Coleridge's "star-dogged Moon," Rime of 
the Ancient Mariner, 1. 212, and Wordsworth's A Night- 
Piece, 11. 11-20. 

161 81. "cenotaph." An empty tomb, intended as a me- 
morial rather than as a grave. 

161 To a Skylark. 

See Introduction, pp. xliii, Iviii, and Ixiv. " Here it was 
[at Casa Ricci], near bustling Leghorn, that Shelley and 
Mary, wandering on a beautiful summer evening ' 'mong the 
lanes whose myrtle-hedges were the bowers of fireflies,' heard 
the carolling of the skylark which inspired that spirit- 
winged song known to all lovers of English poetry — a song 
vibrating still with such a keen and pure intensity." — 
Dowden's Life, II, 331. 

8. Some critics have held that the semicolon at the end 
of this line should be placed after line 7. This w^ould be not 
only an unnecessary variation from the early editions but 
an indefensible one, the genius of the second stanza re- 
quiring a quick, exultant, ascending movement. The stress 
is palpably upon line 8 rather than line 7, since, as Pro- 
fessor Baynes points out, " in the opening verse of the poem 
the lark ... is already far up in the sky." 



NOTES 255 

PAGE 

162 15. For ''unbodied" Professor Craik substituted ''em- 
bodied." This change also is wholly without warrant. The 
lark is a "blithe spirit," a "sprite," a "scorner of the 
ground." It may safely be said that too many corrupt 
passages in Hterature have become so through editorial 
blindness and perversity rather than through original 
creative carelessness. 

32. The succeeding stanzas attempt to answer the 
question. Cf. Wordsworth's To the Daisy (second poem), 
stanzas 2-5. 

163 65. Among all of Shelley's conquests over the apathy 
and heaviness of words there is none more triumphant 
than this felicitous line. 

164 80. Cf. To (" When passion's trance is overpast ") 

and Lines (" When the lamp is shattered "). 

86 sq. Note the autobiographical value of the stanza. 

165 101 sq. Cf. Poe's Israfel, 11. 45-51. 

165 Ode to Liberty. 

" In the spring of the year [1820], moved by the uprising 
of the Spaniards, he had written his Ode to Liberty, in 
which the grave Muse of History is summoned to utter 
oracles of hope for the cause of freedom." — Dowden's 
Life, II, 343. 

The motto is taken from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ^ 
Canto IV, stanza 98. 

15. "a voice." Cf. Wordsworth's sonnet, England and 
Switzerland, 1802. "the same." A weak phrase, flatting 
the line. The "voice" reviews the rise of Liberty and ap- 
peals for her fuller welcome. 

166 18. "daedal." See note on Mont Blanc, 1. 86.^ 

19. "island." A favourite image and idea with Shelley. 
Cf. 11. 108, 206. Cf. Introduction, p. xliv. 

31. "then." A weak use. 

38. "For thou wert not." Note that this phrasing is 
iterated in precisely the same place in stanzas 2 and 3. 
Contrast 1. 72. 

41. " sister-pest." Ecclesiasticism, or traditional religion. 
Cf. 1. 83. 

167 47. "dividuous." Dividing. 

51. "unapprehensive." Unable to apprehend. See note 
on Arethusa, 1. 60. 

69-75. Liberty a condition of art. 

168 74. "that hill." The Acropolis. 
87-90. Cf. Adonais, stanzas 52 and 54. 

92. "Cadmsean Maenad." A Theban worshipper of 
Bacchus. Euripides makes them nurses of young wolves. 
See note on The Sensitive Plant, 1. 34. 

93. " thy dearest." Athens. 

98. " Camillus." Marcus Furius Camillus was a renowned 
Roman hero, who relieved his people when besieged by 



256 NOTES 

PAGE 

the Gauls. ''Atilius." Or, Regulus, a Roman consul, who, 
captured by the Carthaginians and sent to Rome to solicit 
peace, advised the Senate to continue the war. On his 
return to Carthage he was, as he expected, put to death. 
169 103. '^Palatinus.'^ One of the seven hills of Rome. 

106. ^' Hyrcanian." Hyrcania was an ancient Persian 
province, south of the Hyrcanian (Caspian) sea. 

110-113. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 11. 39-43. 

114, 115. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 11. 52-55. 

115. '^ Scald's.'' A Scald was an ancient Scandinavian 
minstrel. Among the Celts the word equals ' bard.' 

119. ''The Galilean serpent." Christianity. 

171 171-173. A reference to the French Revolution. 
175. ''Anarch." Napoleon. 

180. Cf. Gray's The Bard, stanzas 2 and 3. 
186. "Pithecusa." An island in the Bay of Naples. 
''Pelorus." A Sicilian headland. 

172 192. "Twins of a single destiny." England and Spain. 
194. "the dim West." Possibly America; possibly the 

Past, though this latter interpretation would hardly be in 
accord with Shelley's idea of the youth of Liberty; more 
probably the ripe Future of humanity, as the West is the 
day-old sun's glory and solace, "impress us." Mrs. Shelley 
suggests 'as' for 'us.' 

196. "Arminius." An early German hero, who defeated 
the Romans. 

204. "thou." Italy. 

212. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, III, 4, 439. 

173 226-240. Cf. Introduction, pp. xix and xx. 

174 248. Cf. 1. 55. 

254-255. Understand 'if Wealth can rend.' 
258. "Eoanwave." Wave of dawn. 
266. Cf. Wordsworth's Ode to Duty, 1. 2. 

175 271-285. The student will note the powerful felicity in 
general of Shelley's finales. See Introduction, p. Ixiv. 

283. "great voice." Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 1. 132. 
175 The Sensitive Plant. 

I In this lovely allegory Shelley expresses the cardinal 
^ truth of idealism and romanticism, that 

"The One remains, the many change and pass ; 
Heaven's light for ever shines. Earth's shadows fly." 

Though the Spirit of Light and Love is impotent to 
prevent the apparent material decay of all things beautiful, 
it is potent in the world of ideas to redeem for ever from 
death and destruction. Cf. Browning's Aht Vogler, 11. 69 sq. 
Lady Mountcashell (Mrs. Mason), with whom the Shelleys 
were very friendly during their stay in Pisa, \*as, accord- 
ing to Medwin, " a superior and accomplished woman, and 
a great resource to Shelley, who read with her Greek. He 



NOTES 257 

PAGE 

told me that she was the source of the inspiration of his 
Sensitive Plant, and that the scene of it was laid in her 
garden, as unpoetical a place as could be well imagined." 
It will interest the student also to note the following pass- 
age from a letter of Shelley to Leigh Hunt: "Williams is 
one of the best fellows in the world; and Jane, his wife, 
a most delightful person, who, we all agree, is the exact 
antitype of the lady I described in The Sensitive Plants 
though this must have been a pure anticipated cognition, 
as it was written a year before I knew her.'^ 

176 13 sq. Cf. with this series of exquisitely wrought flower- 
pictures The Question, 11. 9—32, and see note on same. 

17. "wind-flowers.'^ See note on The Question, 1. 9. 

177 34. Maenad. A bacchante, a frenzied female worshipper 
of Bacchus, bearing the thyrsus, a shght staff crowned with 
a pine-cone. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, II, 3, 314; III, 3, 
287; IV, 473. 

54. " asphodel." In Greek mythology a pale and deHcate 
flower growing in Hades among the dead. 

178 70-73. The last line of this stanza is rather obscure. 
The passage may be thus re-phrased : ' The Sensitive Plant, 
unable to reveal its love, like the other flowers, in blossoms 
of beauty and fragrance, nevertheless on that very account 
was more richly dowered than they, since the love it so 
strongly felt but could not express, having no outlet 
("where none wanted but it"), struck into the "deep 
heart" of the plant itself and expended all its power in 
gracing and purifying that heart.' "could belong to the 
giver," i. e. the would-be giver; hence, ideally, a giver 
indeed. 

179 98. Cf. The Cloud, 11. 41-42. 

182 177. "Baise." See note on Ode to the West Wind, 1. 32. 
189. Cf. A Dirge (" Rough wdnd, that moanest loud.") 

183 210-211. Cf. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 11. 220- 
223. Shelley was very fond of Coleridge's poem. 

220-221. Cf. Tennyson's In Memoriam, Lyric 72, 11. 9- 
12. 

184 230, 231. The sense will be apparent if "stretched" is 
mentally related to "hemlock," and "stifled" to all the 
baneful weeds. 

232-247. These stanzas show a marked reaction toward 
Shelley's interest in the horrible and sinister. See Intro- 
duction, pp. xi and xiv. Coleridge, in revising The Rime of 
the Ancient Mariner, omitted, after the first edition, the fol- 
lowing stanza : — 

".His bones were black with many a crack, 
All bare and black, I ween; 
Jet black and bare, save where with rust 
Of mouldy damp and charnel crust 
They're patched with purple and green." 



258 NOTES 

PAGE 

Would not The Sensitive Plant have gained in poetic power 
if Shelley had, similarly, made some modification here? 
Note the finer art shown in the more austere pictures of 
11. 264-279. 

185 256. "forbid.^' Accursed. 

186 287. ^' griff." Grip; clutch. 

302-303. Cf. Adonais, 1. 344; Swinburne's sonnet. On 
the Death of Robert Browning. 

188 To Night. 

Cf. Longfellow's Hymn to the Night. 

189 19. Rossetti uses the feminine pronoun, justifying the 
change by reference to 11. 10 and 11. It is probable, how- 
ever, that in this instance '' Day'' and *' the Day" appealed 
to Shelley's imagination precisely as the gender of the 
original pronouns indicates. 

34, 35. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, II, 1, 15. 

189 Sonnet to Byron. 

Not technically a legitimate sonnet. The student should 
consult any work on poetics — such as Gummere's Hand- 
book — for a discussion of the canonical sonnet fornix. See 
Introduction, p. Ixiv. 

For remarks concerning the relations of Byron and 
Shelley, see Introduction, pp. xxxv, xxxvi, xl, xlvii, and 
xlviii. 

6. "rise as fast and fair." Byron's Cain, Heaven and 
Earth and The Vision of Judgment were written in rapid 
succession, about this time. 

190 To Emilia Viviani. 

See Introduction, p. xliv, for an account of this beautiful 
and unfortunate girl. Cf. also Shelley's Epipsychidion, 
addressed to her. 

191 To (** Music, when soft voices die "). 

3. "odours." Note Shelley's fondness for this word as 
inducing sensuous appeal. Cf., with the stanza, Shake- 
speare's Twelfth Night, Act I, Sc. 1, 11. 1-16. 

192 To ("When passion's trance is overpast"). 

The haunting melancholy of this lyric finely expresses 
the poet's sense of the mutability of human life and of the 
incompleteness of human love. Cf. Shelley's remark to 
Gisborne: "I think one is always in love with something 
or other; the error . . . consists in seeking in a mortal 
image the likeness of what is, perhaps, eternal." Cf, also 
Mutability and Lines ("When the lamp is shattered"). 

10. Cf. Byron's Elegy on Thyrza, stanza 7, and his 
Youth and Age, stanza 5. 
, 193 Mutability. 
/ Cf. Robert Herrick's To Daffodils, Spenser's unfinished 

canto to Mutability {The Faerie Queene), and Bacon's 
last completed Essay, Of Vicissitude of Things. Cf. also 
Shelley's other Mutability. 



NOTES 



259 



PAGE 

194 Sonnet — Political Greatness. 

See note on Sonnet to Byron. 

5. Shelley had slight enthusiasm for historical study as 
such. 

8. "obscene." Ugly. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, IV, 95. 
A Lament (" O World! O Life! O Time! ") 

8. Rossetti inserts "autumn" after '' summer," most 
/ improperly, as regards both music and content. 
V/'197 Adonais. 

See Introduction, pp. xlv, xlvi, Ixi, Ixiii, and Ixiv. 

The most notable personal elegies or elegiac poems in our 
language may be stated as follows : — 



(X'lgs 



Author. 

Unknown (Anglo-Saxon 
Period) 

Edmund Spenser 

John Milton 

Percy Bysshe Shelley 

Alfred Tennyson 

Matthew Arnold 

Robert Browning 

Algernon Charles Swin- 
burne 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Walt Whitman 



Title. 

The Wanderer 

Astrophel 

Lycidas 

Adonais 

In Memoriam 

Thyrsis 

La Saisiaz 

Ave atque Vale 

Threnody 

When Lilacs Last 

in the Dooryard 

Bloomed 



In Memory of 

The singer's patron. 
Sir Philip Sidney 
Edward King 
John Keats 
Arthur Henry Hallam 
Arthur Hugh Clough 
Miss A. Egerton-Smith 

Charles Baudelaire 
His son 



Abraham Lincoln 



The more canonical and literary — by no means there- 
fore the less vital — among these elegies, including Adonais, 
show the influence of the memorial idylls of Theocritus, 
Bion and Moschus. Shelley, more particularly, is indebted 
to Bion's Lament for Adonis and to Moschus's Lament for 
Bion. Keats's death, though the circumstances attending it 
and its meaning for him and for humanity are treated with 
poetic energy, is yet made but the occasion of a penetrating 
glance into the problems of physical decay and spiritual 
futurity. While Milton's elegy makes its chief burden 
clerical insincerity and undutifulness, corruption versus 
incorruption ; Tennyson's, the difficult restoration of the 
indispensable minimum of faith; and Browning's, the 
intellectual veracity of the idea of the Soul; Shelley, 
for his part, wings through palpable darkness his flaming 
way into the slow sunrise of Eternal Love and Beauty. 
His own opinions of the poem are given freely in such 
passages as these : — 

^'You may announce for publication a poem entitled 
Adonais. It is a lament on the death of poor Keats, with 
some interposed stabs on the assassins of his peace and of 
his fame." {Letter to Oilier.) 

"1 have received the heart-rending account of the clos- 



260 NOTES 

PAGE 

ing scene of the great genius whom envy and ingratitude 
scourged out of the world. I do not think that if I had 
seen it before, I could have composed my poem. The enthu- 
siasm of the imagination would have overpowered the 
sentiment. 

"As it is, I have finished my Elegy; and this day I send 
it to the press at Pisa. You shall have a copy the moment 
it is completed. I think it will please you. I have dipped 
my pen in consuming fire for his destroyers; otherwise the 
style is calm and solemn." (Letter to Gisborne.) 

Shelley doubtless uses the name 'Adonais' to indicate 
his literary debt to Bion. Furnivall says that it is Shelley's 
variant for 'Adonias,' the women's yearly lamentation for 
Adonis. 
• The passage from Moschus, beginning the Preface, is 
rendered by Andrew Lang thus: ''Poison came, Bion, 
to thy mouth — thou didst know poison. To such lips as 
thine did it come, and was not sweetened? What mortal 
was so cruel that could mix poison for thee, or who could 
give thee the venom that heard thy voice? Surely he had no 
music in his soul." 

With the second paragraph of the Preface compare 
Byron's Don Juan, Canto XI, stanza 60: — 

" Tis very strange the mind, that fiery particle, 
Should let itself be snuff' d out by an article," 

The student will note, however, that Keats was more virile 
than these passages indicate. Cf. his own statement: 
" Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man 
whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe 
critic on his own works. My own domestic criticism has 
k given me pain without comparison beyond what Blackwood 
*' or the Quarterly could possibly inflict; and also when I feel 1 
am right, no external praise can give me such a glow as my 
own solitary reperception and ratification of what is fine." 

199 1 sq. Cf . the opening of Bion's Lament for Adonis (Lang's 
translation): "Woe, woe for Adonis, he hath perished, the 
beauteous Adonis, dead is the beauteous Adonis, the Loves 
join in the lament. No more in thy purple raiment, Cypris, 
do thou sleep; arise, thou wretched one, sable-stoled, and 
beat thy breasts, and say to all, ' He hath perished, the 
lovely Adonis ! '" 

10. "Where wert thou?" Cf. Milton's Lycidas, I. 50; 
"mighty Mother." Urania, the Muse of Astronomy, or the 
spirit of heaven, inspirer of poetry. The Uranian Aphrodite 
of Shelley corresponds to the Cyprian Aphrodite of Bion. 
Cf. Tennyson's In Memoriam, Lyric 37. 

15. "one." An Echo. 

18. "he." Adonais. 

200 29. "He." Milton. 



NOTES 261 

PAGE 

200 35. ''his clear sprite/' Cf. Milton's Cowws, 11. 381-382 : — 

"He that has h'ght within his own clear breast 
May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day." 

36. ''the third." Shelley ranks Homer, Dante, and 
Milton, in his Defence of Poetry, as the three great epic 
poets. In widening the category, he would almost certainly 
have given Shakespeare place among the prime three poets. 
In any case, the passage should not be interpreted too par- 
ticularly. 

40-41. '* Tapers" and "suns" are, of course, contrasted. 

48-49. Cf. Keats's Isabella, or The Pot of Basil. 

51. "extreme." The stress falls equally on each syllable, 
as also in 1. 68. 

201 55. "that high capital." Rome. 

65-72. Contrast with this picture the unreserve of the 
'corruption' passage in The Sensitive Plants 11. 232-247, 
and see note thereon. 

73. "The quick Dreams." The subtle visions, emotions, 
imaginings, of the poetic consciousness. Note their ap- 
pearance in Prometheus Unbound. 

80. "their sweet pain." The sweet pain they cause, — 
"sweet," because of the joy of the visions; " pain," because 
their beauty is not capable of adequate expression in 
words. They are born, yet not born. 

202 83. "moonlight wings." An exquisite touch. For similar 
associations, cf. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's 
Dreum, Act II, Sc. 1, 11. 29, 156-158; Act III, Sc. 1, 11. 175- 
176. 

84. "is not dead." Cf. Lycidas, 1. 166. 

88. "a ruined Paradise." The mind of Adonais. 

91-99. Cf.,from Bion's Lament for Adonis, "He reclines, 
the delicate Adonis, in his raiment of purple, and around 
him the Loves are weeping, and groaning aloud, clipping 
their locks for Adonis. And one upon his shafts, another 
on his bow is treading, and one hath loosed the sandal of 
Adonis, and another hath broken his own feathered quiver, 
and one in a golden vessel bears water, and another laves 
the wound, and another from behind him with his wings 
is fanning Adonis." (tr. Lang.) 

104. "with lightning and with music." Symbolizing 
the irresistible enchantment, the sheer impetus, of sure 
poetry. Cf . Adonais itself. " the damp death." The cold 
dews of death. 

105. "its." The antecedent is "Splendour." 

107. "clips." Surrounds or embraces. Anglo-Saxon, 
clyppan. 

203 116. "pomp." Procession. 

117. Note the melancholy charm of this fine figure. 



262 NOTES 

PAGE 

203 124. Cf. The Cloud, 11. 19-20. 

127-139. Cf., from Moschus's Lament for Bion, ''And 
Echo in the rocks laments that thou art silent, and no 
more she mimics thy voice. And in sorrow for thy fall the 
trees cast down their fruit, and all the flowers have faded." 
(tr. Lang.) 

133. "those.'" The lips of Narcissus, with whom the 
nymph Echo was in love. See note on 1. 141. 

204 140. "Phoebus." Apollo. ''Hyacinth." Hyacinthus 
was a son of Amyclas and Diomede, and was greatly loved 
by Apollo, who accidentally slew him. The flower which 
bears his name sprang from his blood. 

141. "Narcissus." Son of Cephisus and the nymph 
Liriope. He became enamoured of his own image, con- 
ceiving it to be a nymph, and killed himself in chagrin at his 
failure to reach it. 

145. " lorn nightingale." Cf . Keats 's Ode to a Nightingale, 

146. "melodious pain." Cf. Matthew Arnold's PMoweZa ; 

"Hark! from that moonlit cedar what a bursti 
What triumph! hark! what pain! " 

151—153. A reference to the critical attack upon Keats's 
Endymion in the Quarterly Review. 

154 sq. Spring is at hand, but its reappearance has no 
counterpart in the revival of Adonais. Cf. In Memorianif 
Lyric 38, and also Moschus: "Ah me, when the mallows 
wither in the garden, and the green parsley, and the curled 
tendrils of the anise, on a later day they live again, and 
spring in another year; but we men, we, the great and 
mighty, or wise, when once we have died, in hollow earth 
we sleep, gone down into silence; a right long, and endless, 
and unawakening sleep." (tr. Lang.) 

205 179. "sightless." Unsighted; invisible. 

187-189. Cf. Lines Written among the Euganean Hills y 
11. 1-16. 

206 190-216. Urania, urged by Misery, Dreams, and Echoes, 
hastens to Rome, to seek the death-chamber of Adonais. 

195. "their sister's song." See 11. 13-18. 

208-216. Cf. Bion's Lament for Adonis: ". . .but 
Aphrodite with unbound locks through the glades goes 
wandering, — wretched, with hair unbraided, with feet 
unsandalled, and the thorns as she passes wound her and 
pluck the blossom of her sacred blood." (tr. Lang.) 

207 217-261. Urania's lament. 

227-232. Cf. Bion's Lament for Adonis: "Abide with 
me, Adonis, hapless Adonis, abide. . . . Awake, Adonis, 
for a little while, and kiss me yet again, the latest kiss! 
Nay kiss me but a moment, but the lifetime of a kiss. ..." 
(tr. Lang.) 

228. "heartless." In that Adonais has her heart. 



NOTES ' 263 

PAGE 

207 234. Cf. Bion's Lament for Adonis: "... while wretched 
I yet live, being a goddess, and may not follow thee!'' 
(tr. Lang.) 

235-240. Cf. Bion's Lament for Adonis: "For why, ah 
overbold, didst thou follow the chase, and being so fair, 
why wert thou thus overhardy to fight with beasts?" 
(tr. Lang.) 

208 245. "obscene." See note on Sonnet — Political Great- 
ness, 1. 8. 

250. "Pythian." Byron, who castigated his early 
critics in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. The Pythian 
Apollo, slayer of the Python, is referred to. 

209 262-315. The pastoral mourning of the mountain-shep- 
herds, the fellows of Adonais. 

264. "The Pilgrim of Eternity." Byron. Cf. Childe 
Harold's Pilgrimage. 

268. "lerne." Ireland. 

269. " sweetest lyrist." Thomas Moore. These references 
are poetic, not particular. 

271-297. These three stanzas contain Shelley's portrait 
of himself. 

274-276. Actseon was a hunter who chanced to see 
Artemis and her maidens bathing, and was on that account 
changed into a stag and pursued to his death by his own 
hounds. 

278-279. Cf. Tennyson's The Passing of Arthur ; — 

".His own thought drove him like a goad." 

210 297. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, I, 456; IV, 73, 74; The 
Cenci, I, 2, 14; Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 2, 1. 250. 

306. A reference to the many troubles of Shelley's short 
life. Cf. the following passage from a letter to Godwin 
(Feb. 26, 1816): "But he [Turner] is apt to take offence, 
and I am too generally hated not to feel that the smallest 
kindness from an old acquaintance is valuable." 

312-315. The reference is to Leigh Hunt, friend and 
lover of Keats. At Hunt's home the two poets first met. 

211 316-324. Cf. the prefatory passage from Moschus. There 
is no necessary conflict here with 11. 11 and 193. Precise 
and unvarying consistency in figurative expression does not 
enter into Shelley's theory of art. 

316-333. The critic scourged. 

334-396. An imaginative adventuring into the realm of 
the Eternal. 
340. Cf. 1. 370, and note thereon. 

212 343. Revert to 11. 19 and 84. Cf. Lycidas, 1. 166. 

344. " the dream of life." A phrase peculiarly character- 
istic of Shelley's genius and philosophy. See Introduction, 
pp. Ix and Ixi. Cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV, 



264 • NOTES 

PAGE 

Sc. 1, 11. 68-69; Act V, Sc. 1, 11. 208-209; and Swinburne's 
sonnet, On Robert Browning : — 

"- He held no dream worth waking : so he said, 

He who stands now on death's triumphal steep, 
Awakened out of life wherein we sleep 

And dream of what he knows and sees, being dead." 

212 346. ''phantoms." Cf. Bry smV s Thanatopsis,\\. 63-6^. 
348-351. Cf. Walt Whitman's Pensive and Faltering : — 

"Pensive and faltering, 
The words, the dead, I write ; 
For living are the dead ; 
(Haply the only living, only real, 
And I the apparition — I the spectre.) " 

Cf. also The Sensitive Plant, 11. 304-^15 ; Prometheus Un- 
bound, III, 3, 247-248. Plato and ^schylus present similar 
ideas. 

356. Cf. 11. 462-463. 

366. Cf. Bion's Lament for Adonis: "Cease, Cytherea, 
from thy lamentations, to-day refrain from thy dirges." 
(tr. Lang.) 

213 370-387. Cf . with this high pantheistic outburst kindred 
passages in several of the great elegies: Lycidas, 11. 183-185; 
In Memoriam, Lyrics 46 and 130; Thyrsis, stanzas 18-19; 
etc. 

214 397-414. The eager welcome of Adonais by those of his 
spiritual kindred, who, like him, were cut off before matur- 
ity. 

399. "Chatterton." Thomas Chatterton (1752-70) was 
a young romantic poet of great promise, who slew himself 
at eighteen. 

401. ''Sidney." Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) was an 
Elizabethan writer and statesman, who died in the battle 
of Zutphen, aged thirty-two. 

404. "Lucan." Marcus Annseus Lucanus (a. d. 39-65), 
a Spaniard by birth and a Roman by citizenship, wrote 
the epic Pharsalia. Condemned to death for conspiring 
against Nero, he took his own life at twenty-six. 

415-495. The concluding apostrophe is addressed by 
the poet largely to his own heart, as affected by the fact 
of death and the mystery of the future. 

215 438-450. A beautiful picture of the English burying- 
place at Rome. See Introduction, p. Ixi. 

444. "one keen pyramid." In memory of Caius Ces tins. 

216 451-457. Shelley's three-year-old son William was buried 
here. 

460-464. This strong, serene passage unlocks the heart 
of Shelley as poet and thinker. See note on 1. 344. 

217 478-486. The hope and aspiration of all the great ro- 



NOTES 265 

PAGE 

man tic poets are in these lines, — Blake, Wordsworth, 
Coleridge, Emerson, Keats himself. 

217 480-481. Cf. Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Im- 
mortality, stanzas 5 and 9; cf. also Shelley's Essay, On 
a Future State. 

218 Lines CWhen the lamp is shattered"). 

Cf. To C* When passion's trance is overpast"). 

219 25. The poet is still addressing Love, who should not 
choose for his cradle a weak human heart. 

220 To Jane — The Invitation. 

This and the following two poems were written and 
addressed to Jane Williams, wife of Lieutenant Edward 
Elliker Williams. See Introduction, pp. xlv and xlviii. 

Parts of this and the succeeding poem were originally 
published by Mrs. Shelley as a unit of poetry, entitled 
The Pine Forest of the Cascine near Pisa. 

221 29 sq. Cf. Emerson's April. 

222 To Jane — The Recollection. 

9. The student will note that the metre of the intro- 
ductory section is modified in the succeeding sections, to 
give unity of movement to the '^ recollection" proper. Note 
also the finely vagrant effect of the alhterative first foot 
in 1. 9, and of the change from iambus to trochee in ^' forest." 

223 24. ^'serpents interlaced." Shelley, and Browning as 
stimulated by Shelley, were imaginatively much interested 
in snakes. Byron, indeed, called Shelley '^ the Snake," on 
account of his ^'bright eyes, slim figure, and noiseless 
movements." Cf. Alastor, 11. 228, 325, 438; The Revolt 
of Islam, Canto I, stanzas 8-33; To Edward Williams, 
stanza 1; Adonais, 1. 197; Mont Blanc, 1. 101; Ode to 
Liberty, 11. 119, 210; song of Beatrice in The Cenci; Pro- 
metheus Unbound, I, 633; II, 4, 402; III, 2, 72; III, 4, 
427; IV, 305, 567; The Assassins, chapter iv. 

35. Note the realistic effect of the conjunction of the 
iambus, '*sy wood" with the trochee, '* pecker." 

42. The Trelawny MS. has ''white." ''Wide" is pre- 
ferable as deepening the antithesis between the remote 
distance and "the soft flower beneath our feet," 

224 55 sq. Cf. The Cloud, 11. 56-58. 

225 With a Guitar, to Jane. 

Trelawny thus describes his discovery of Shelley in the 
pine forest, where he sat composing the present poem: 
"The strong Hght streamed through the opening of the 
trees. One of the pines, undermined by the water, had 
fallen into it. Under its lee, and nearly hidden, sat the 
Poet, gazing on the dark mirror beneath, so lost in his 
bardish reverie that he did not hear my approach. There 
the trees were stunted and bent, and their crowns were 
shorn like friars by the sea breezes, excepting a cluster 
of three, under which Shelley's traps were lying; these 



266 NOTES 

PAGE 

overtopped the rest. To avoid startling the Poet out of 
his dream, I squatted under the lofty trees, and opened his 
books. One was a volume of his favourite Greek dramatist, 
Sophocles . . . and the other was a volume of Shakespeare. 
I then hailed him, and, turning his head, he answered 
faintly : 

" ' Hollo, come in.' 

'' * Is this your study?' I asked. 

''*Yes,' he answered, 'and these trees are my books — 
they tell no lies. You are sitting on the stool of inspiration,' 
he exclaimed. . . . 'Listen to the solemn music in the 
pine-tops — don't you hear the mournful murmurings of 
the sea?'" 

'' Jane, with her grace, and suavity, and bland motions, 
and soothing words, was conceived by him as the dispenser 
of an exquisite felicity, to which her husband had a first 
claim, but the overflow of which might be Shelley's own. 
How could he adequately express his pleasure in her gentle- 
ness, her penetrating charity, her ineffable tenderness ? 
She should be the Queen of Amity and halcyon hours, 
with Edward WilHams for a fortunate Prince Consort, and 
he should be her humble troubadour; or call the pair 
Ferdinand and Miranda, with Shelley for their faithful 
Ariel." — Dowden's Life, II, 474. 

See Introduction, p. xii, for a comparison of Shelley with 
Ariel, the sprite of Shakespeare's Tempest. See also note on 
Ode to the West Wind. 
228 90. For ''Friend" several editions have "Jane." The 
former word is not incongruous with the Ariel-Miranda 
fancy. 



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